The former UK deputy prime minister - who recently stepped won as president of global affairs at Facebook's parent company - believes it's "implausible" for creatives to be asked permission prior to AI systems training on their content.

Speaking at the Charleston Festival recently, he said: “I think the creative community wants to go a step further.

“Quite a lot of voices say, ‘You can only train on my content, [if you] first ask’. And I have to say that strikes me as somewhat implausible because these systems train on vast amounts of data.”

Clegg believes it would be an instant killer for the AI industry.

He went on: “I just don’t know how you go around, asking everyone first. I just don’t see how that would work.

And by the way if you did it in Britain and no one else did it, you would basically kill the AI industry in this country overnight.”

Meanwhile, Clegg previously acknowledged that tech giants need to work together in order to combat AI-generated deepfakes that could sway elections.

The former politician - who served as the UK's deputy prime minister between 2010 and 2015 - said in 2024: "Everybody recognises that no one tech company, no one government, no one civil society organisation is able to deal with the advent of this technology and its possible nefarious use on their own."