More than 2,000 cultural figures challenge Whitehall’s eagerness ‘to ­wrap our lives’ work in attractive paper for automated competitors’

Original British art and creative skill is in peril thanks to the rise of AI and the government’s plans to loosen ­copyright rules, some of the UK’s leading cultural figures have said.

More than 2,000 people, including leading creative names such as Mark Haddon, Axel Scheffler, Benji Davies and Michael Rosen, have signed a ­letter published in the Observer today calling on the government to keep the legal safeguards that offer artists and writers the prospect of a ­sustainable income.