Jack Thorne Calls for Penalties Over Undisclosed AI-Written Scripts

Jack Thorne wants writers who secretly submit AI-generated scripts to face legal and professional penalties, arguing the practice could let studios and publishers cast writers as the problem in AI’s disruption.

Thorne, the co-writer of Netflix drama Adolescence and president of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, said in a speech in London that he had heard anecdotes of writers using generative AI as a substitute for writing. His concern was not that every use of an AI tool is improper; it was that some writers may be presenting generated work as their own.

Assistance is not the target

He explicitly separated using AI for discussion, spelling checks or layout help from using prompts in place of writing words. In his framing, the latter is not a shortcut within the job but a failure to perform it. He said writers who do so are cheating both employers and fellow writers.

Passing AI work off as your own needs to be unlawful.

Jack Thorne

A proposed enforcement ladder

Thorne’s proposed response has two tracks: law and workplace enforcement. He described undisclosed AI-generated content as fraud and said companies affected by it should be able to prosecute. He also said broadcasters should make clear that generating submitted work with AI can carry professional consequences, arguing that this would protect writers who are most vulnerable.

• A legal rule against presenting AI-generated work as personal authorship.
• Sanctions from broadcasters including the BBC and Channel 4 for writers found to have generated their work with AI.
• Limits on AI systems impersonating actors, directors and writers.

The writer-focused case against training data

The speech also tied that workplace concern to Thorne’s criticism of UK policy on copyright and AI training. He said ministers had been too taken with technology’s promise and had not done enough to protect writers’ copyright from the collection of creative work used to train AI models. He argued that systems used by the public should not be built through what he characterized as theft of copyrighted material.

The government previously dropped a proposal that would have required creators and rights holders to opt out before their work could be used for AI training, then held a consultation. In March, it published a report and impact assessment on the use of copyrighted works in developing AI systems.

The government’s response emphasized a balancing act: copyright law should protect the UK’s creative sector while allowing AI-driven innovation. Thorne’s intervention turns that broad dispute into a workplace question: when someone submits a script under their own name, what should an employer be entitled to know about how it was made?