The Know Daily - Wednesday 30 April 2025

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A pioneering new treatment is bringing hope to patients experiencing heart failure, and their families. St. George’s Hospital in London successfully trialled chemotherapy-style-dosages of drugs, meaning eligible patients can be treated quicker and more effectively, helping to improve the quality of their lives 🫀

📚 Authors and AI

Writers could get paid when AI uses their work, thanks to a new collaborative initiative in the UK.

What’s the story?
UK non-profit Copyright Licensing Agency is planning to introduce a new collective licensing scheme this summer. It’s designed to liaise between creatives and tech companies, ensuring authors, poets and journalists are compensated when their work is used to train AI models like ChatGPT. Until now, AI companies have often used vast amounts of copyrighted material without permission – and without paying. The new licence will allow tech firms to use works legally, while ensuring the creators behind them get fair payment.

Why does it matter?
Writers have long argued that AI companies are profiting from their work without consent. A recent survey by the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) found that 77% of authors weren’t even aware their writing had been used for AI training and that 81% would be keen to join the planned initiative. 

This new licensing move is being seen as a practical solution – giving AI companies an easier way to access content while protecting the UK’s creative economy. Instead of lengthy court battles, it offers a way forward that rewards talent and tech advancement. It’s also an alternative to plans set out by the UK government that relied upon creatives opting out of AI using copyrighted material, something that ALCS says is “neither necessary nor desirable”.

What does it mean going forwards?
The scheme will be voluntary for now, but it sets an important precedent that aims to both empower innovation, whilst respecting creators. As other countries try to work out how to regulate AI and copyright, the UK’s model could become a blueprint. Importantly, it could help to navigate the practicalities of tech companies obtaining licensed copies of works to train AI, without having to contact individual creatives. It’s also part of a bigger trend: governments and creators alike are pushing back on unchecked AI expansion.

🪙 Coin revival: Businesses across the UK could soon be required to accept coins and banknotes amid a trend towards card-only payments, MPs have said.

• The bigger story: A cross-party group has urged the government to monitor and report the state of cash acceptance. Even though fewer people in the UK are paying with cash, the loss of cash acceptance could affect the ability of vulnerable groups who rely on it – like people with learning disabilities or the elderly – accessing community spaces, public transport and leisure centres.

🌳 Space brolly: The European Space Agency launched a “first-of-its-kind” satellite that can calculate the amount of carbon inside the world’s 1.5t trees – it could help to transform our understanding of forests.

📱 Anti-scam service: More than 1m calls have been made to the “159” anti-scam hotline in the UK since launching in 2021.

🇲🇹 Cash for citizenship: Malta’s “golden passport” – which let people become citizens after making investments like buying a property or donating to charity – was ruled as illegal by the EU’s top court.

🍝 Premium pasta: Scientists have crafted the perfect cacio e pepe recipe.

🚢 Fascinating finding: Spanish archaeologists have uncovered a 500-year-old medieval shipwreck. 

🎼 Changing tastes: Fewer children are learning to play the recorder in the UK in favour of these instruments.

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