In nearly every country, copyright is pegged to human authorship. The AI art above won first prize at the Colorado State Fair but under current law it can’t be copyrighted because it’s too much “machine” and not enough “human.”

There is consensus across courts. “Plaintiff can point to no case in which a court has recognized copyright in a work originating with a nonhuman,” wrote Judge Beryl Howell of the US District Court for the District of Columbia in another recent ruling.

This seems significant in the battle to define what is human and what gets legally taken over by non-human processes. If AI-generated content gets copyright protection, this grants considerable legal power to companies seeking wholesale utilization of these creative services. Do we want to keep creativity as an essentially human characteristic or are we all ready to hand that over to super-smart technology replacements?

Striking writers and actors are now on the front lines of this battle for creative rights. It is probably not hyperbole to say that this influences what it means to be human, including what it means to be creative.

• What are the implications of allowing a person to be digitally replaced and utilized as a value production resource that is separate and outside their own personal identity and sovereignty?
• AI tools can absolutely help us with our creative objectives, but what are we left with if new technologies like ChatGPT, quantum computing, Virtual and Augmented Reality, and robots legally take over what it means to be human?
• Companies like Neuralink are already interfacing AI tech directly into our brain. Will our laws help us figure out what to do with Cyborgs when they decide to compete on the open jobs market?

The Hollywood strike seems to be the canary in a yawning coal mine that can only deepen as AI moves towards center stage.

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For more information on this topic, see:

https://www.wired.com/story/ai-art-copyright-matthew-allen/

https://www.wired.com/story/hollywood-sag-strike-artificial-intelligence/

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/22/sag-aftra-wga-strike-artificial-intelligence