The United States Copyright Office has refuse (pdf) to grant intellectual property to an AI for the creation of an artwork on February 14. The authority believes that such recognition requires human intervention in the creative process.
Intellectual property only applies where there is human intervention
An American researcher, Stephen Thaler, has created an AI with an explicit artistic inclination: the “Creativity Machine”. The algorithm is the source of a series of works on the simulated near-death experience. In 2019 Stephen Thaler attempted to patent one of the images in this series, A Recent Entrance to Paradisewithout success.
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The researcher presented the artwork not as a figment of his imagination performed by an AI, but as ” a work for the owner of the Creativity Machine “which was created” autonomously by a computer algorithm running on a machine “. A subtle nuance that amounts to making the AI the artist.
This is where it gets stuck for the US Copyright Office. According to current copyright law in the United States, intellectual property protects the fruit of a work, of the imagination of a human being. Pieces ” produced by a machine or simple mechanical process without human intervention are not taken into account.
A decision challenged by Stephen Thaler who believes that ” the requirement of human paternity is unconstitutional “. Reconsideration of the application did not convince the United States Copyright Office ” to deviate from a century of copyright case law “. A sentence leaving little room for a rapid change in the legal framework.
In the United States, all jurisdictions, up to the Supreme Court, refuse to grant copyright to non-human creations, although there is no very precise rule on the subject. The Verge, which relays the information, mentions a 1997 decision on a book supposedly of divine origin. Justice agreed to protect it provided that a human intervention in the creation of the book was highlighted.
The recognition of AI works: the debate is open
Defending the authorship of AIs on their creations seems to be one of Stephen Thaler’s passions. He once tried to get another AI, DABUS, a patent for one of his inventions. It was rejected in the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, the European Union and Australia.
In the latter case, however, a door was opened in 2020 by the courts for the recognition of AI works. In South Africa, the invention was recognized as ” autonomously generated by an artificial intelligence “.
With the evolution and democratization of AI, the question of the nature of the protection of their creations will arise with more and more acuity. In China, a court granted copyright protection to an AI for an article.
The World Intellectual Property Organization, attached to the United Nations, has launched since 2019 a ” Dialogue on Intellectual Property and Artificial Intelligence “. For the moment, the discussions are still ongoing. What give hope of justice to Stephen Thaler for his AI.