Autonomous Intelligent Systems as Creative Agents under the EU framework for Intellectual Property

Abstract

Recent advancement in technology in the domain of Autonomous Intelligent Systems (AIS) shall eventually lead to autonomous technology that can perceive, learn, decide and create without any human intervention. Already now there are robots that create better versions of robots and computer programmes that produce other computer programmes. Although the ability to create is a quality that has traditionally been considered a human capacity, the sudden increase in the level of complexity of such systems as well as their learning abilities, shall ultimately render human intervention in the process of creation redundant. This makes the need to address creative agents and the challenges they bring ever more evident. This contribution assesses the output of AIS as Creative Agents and its relation to the EU framework for Intellectual Property.

Artificial Intelligence Systems-Aided News and Copyright: Assessing Legal Implications for Journalism Practices

“…Madeleine de Cock Buning made an interesting reflection on this: "Without any form of intellectual property protection, these works can be used, reproduced, changed and distributed to the benefit of all. One can argue in favor of this option where Artificial Intelligence Systems creation is a positive consequence of Artificial Intelligence to the benefit of society as a whole" [8].…”

“…This is the case of the Directive of the European Union 2019/790, on copyright and related right in the digital single market, for instance Article 3.2., on text and data mining. As some relevant scholars have underlined, "the fact that artificial intelligence and robotics are much more than science fiction becomes apparent" on the working documents of the European Commission, but at the same times it appears that it is considered just "the next step in the development of a sustainable information society" [8] (p. 3). Alternatively, automated systems are a concern whenever they are used by platforms like Facebook or Youtube for users' identification and filtering [22] (p. 267), which has a reflection on the literal interpretation of Article 17 of the aforementioned European directive, to oblige Internet services to detect unauthorized (and usually derivative) works uploaded by users without copyright permission.…”

“…This has been called algorithm journalism [1,2] or robot journalism, but, in general terms, it is mentioned as automated journalism [3,4], and it is the type of news item created with the aid of autonomous intelligent systems (AIS) [5][6][7]. The technology "shall eventually lead to autonomous technology that can perceive, learn, decide and create without any human intervention" [8]. The question of a gradual (even if partial, at least for now) substitution of human by machines is in the background.…”

“…The generation of new professional skills and profiles is a trend, as well, that will continue in the coming years, as stated, for instance, by [9]. This is clearly beyond the traditional use of some tools to produce copyrightable works, for instance, photography [8] (p. 321) or word processors. To the extent journalists and the media use software to help human to produce news, this is to be considered a protectable work.…”