The human cause
Daniel J. Gervais · Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2022
Machines are increasingly able to perform tasks that until recently only humans were capable of; namely, tasks anchored in human higher mental faculties. An area of law that will be impacted deeply by this emergence is that of intellectual property. This chapter suggests that analysis of the application of copyright law and patent law doctrines and precedent to production of AI machines should be done separately. The chapter identifies issues worth pondering in both areas and urges utmost caution in the copyright sphere before putting the full force of the market behind accelerating the replacement of human artists, novelists, songwriters and journalists. The chapter suggests using the notion of 'IP proximate cause' to delineate cases where one of more humans contributed sufficiently to the conception of an invention or to generate originality in a copyrightable work. It also considers the case of works and inventions made jointly by machine and human.