AI and copyright: A trillion-pixel problem

16-11-2023

Ed White and Arun Hill

AI and copyright: A trillion-pixel problem

Viktar Dzindzikav / Shutterstock

Without a counterbalance to AI’s unprecedented creativity, humans could be the ones to lose out, say Ed White and Arun Hill of Clarivate.

AI is posing fundamental questions to intellectual property (IP) laws. Both what is intellect, and who (or what) can own it. While this affects almost all classes of IP, arguably the biggest challenge—due to its potential reach to everybody—lies in the creative space: copyright. 

It is a common enough trope: the law grappling with technical advancement. The 19th Century with telegrams and railroads, the later emergence of the car, the question of privacy in the information age. It is perhaps easy to see the question generative AI poses to our legal structures as just another requirement for new regulation and statute, in a long and well-trod tradition.

Yet here, the fundamentals are in play. Our laws assume human ingenuity. Many countries and courts are not yet prepared to recognise nor grant protection and ownership to works created without any human participation.


AI, artificial intelligence, generative, copyright, IP, OpenAI, plagiarism, art, creativity, clarivate

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