Is AI creator of art that's AI-generated?

On Monday, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade's Copyright Office rejected an application seeking to register an artwork created by the AI system DABUS (Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience) with DABUS as its 'author'.

The decision rested on non-recognition of AI as a 'natural person' or 'juristic person under law'. IP rights protection to AI-generated content requires fresh legislation. Most global legal systems are similarly placed because of their emphasis on human individuality and creativity as qualifiers for holding a copyright. AI is seen to fail on both counts.

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The art may be original, but its creator enjoys no legal protection. Prompting an AI system isn't deemed to be art since it doesn't involve any real creative expression. But if significant human intervention were involved in a piece of creativity - say, through editing - the question of not assigning IP protection becomes trickier.

Copyright law, once amended to cater to the new reality, must be able to discern human and AI influence in any creative pursuit, and be able to decide when protection is due.

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Intent of law, as it stands today, is to reward human creativity. Lowering the bar would lead to a tide of cheap - in all its senses - machine-generated content. But content is becoming more autonomous anyway. Offering it no protection will affect technological innovation. The solution would probably lie somewhere in the middle of these two extreme positions. 'Ownership' and 'personality' redefined to keep the copyright law relevant.

This would be a good opportunity for India to make a holistic appraisal of its rather rickety IPR regime. Legislation should provide implementation clarity even outside AI, where most suits are contested.

Protection will derive from AI process transparency that upholds existing copyright claims, while promoting responsible tech innovation. Fair- use standards must be imposed for training AI, and treatment of human-AI collab has to be demarcated in any legislative change India embarks upon.