The scheme is the first of its kind launched by a UK trade association to help protect an entire profession.
The move comes in the absence of any measure by the Government to compel tech companies to label AI-generated outputs. This has left readers struggling to distinguish between books written by a human, and machine-generated work based on AI models that have been trained on copyrighted work without permission or payment.
The Society of Authors’ new scheme allows authors to register their books and download a ‘Human Authored’ logo to display on the back cover of their books, helping to identify their work as created with uniquely human skill,hard work and creative endeavour.
Professor Mary Beard, renowned classicist and SoA Fellow, stands with several high-profile authors who back this scheme and plan to register their works on the Human Authored website.
She said:
“I’m supporting the Human Authored scheme. It’s only going to be Human Authored books on my desert island!”
Acclaimed children’s author and SoA Fellow Malorie Blackman OBE has also lent her support.
She said:
“The ‘Human Authored’ scheme seeks to highlight the imagination, commitment, craft and care taken to produce stories and books which can be enjoyed by everyone.
“Any creative endeavour requires time, effort, a willingness to learn from mistakes and failure, and a determination to persevere – lifelong, essential skills which cannot be learned and honed by allowing AI to do all of our creative thinking and production for us.
“Surely part of the pleasure of reading, listening to songs, watching films and dramas, looking at an artwork and in fact, sharing any creative endeavour is that sense of connection with the content creator, that feeling that they are speaking to you on some deep, emotional level that is entirely absent when the work has been produced by AI.”
Anna Ganley, Chief Executive of the Society of Authors, said:
“Since generative AI platforms have become mainstream, the SoA has been campaigning to defend authors’ interests and safeguard creators against the wholescale theft of their work by AI tech companies to train their AI chatbots. Our new labelling scheme is an important sticking plaster to protect and promote human creativity in lieu of AI labelled content in the marketplace.
“In a recent survey, 82% of our author members told us they would be interested in a ‘Human Authored’ certification scheme. And while we believe the onus should be on tech companies and online retailers to label AI-generated content, until that happens, we have listened toour members and we’re providing a means for them to identify their work as being created with their uniquely human skill, hard work and originality.”
Initially, this scheme will be open to SoA members only, free of charge. The longer-term aim is to open this scheme to non-members.
The Society of Authors has been working with the Authors Guild in the US to mirror their ‘Human Authored’ scheme, which launched at the beginning of 2025. In common with the US scheme, authors in the UK will be able to declare and register their work as ‘Human Authored’. Authors can then download the mark for use in print and digital.
Self-published authors and publishers will be able to use the ‘Human Authored’ mark on their books and the books’ associated web and retail pages to identify it as being ‘Human Authored’.
Readers will be able to search the ‘Human Authored’ database before buying or borrowing a book, giving them confidence that the books they choose to read are the creative work of a human, rather than AI-generated content produced by a chatbot.
