Legal Personhood of Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

With the rise of AI, artistic creation of content is no longer a purely human enterprise. Currently works made by AI are considered to be computer assisted or aided works and copyright/patent right is vested in the human being who uses Al as a tool. However, questions have arisen as who owns the copyright/patent right in AI-generated works where there is no human input. Is it the inventor of the AI? The owner of the AI (Who may not be the inventor)? Or might the AI be given a certain degree of legal subject status and thus have its own rights? Section 4 of the Copyrights and Neighbouring Rights Act, 20061 provides that the author of any work specified in section 5 shall have a right of protection of the work, where work is original and is reduced to material form in whatever method irrespective of quality of the work or the purpose for which it is created. Section 17(1) of the Industrial Property Act 20142 provides that the right to a patent belongs to the inventor. Section 17(2) of the same Act provides that where two or more persons have jointly made an invention the right to the patent belongs to them jointly. It remains unclear who the author or inventor of a work or invention by an AI will be. Section 4 of the Copyrights and Neighbouring Rights Act, 20061 provides that the author of any work specified in section 5 shall have a right of protection of the work, where work is original and is reduced to material form in whatever method irrespective of quality of the work or the purpose for which it is created. Section 17(1) of the Industrial Property Act 20142 provides that the right to a patent belongs to the inventor. Section 17(2) of the same Act provides that where two or more persons have jointly made an invention the right to the patent belongs to them jointly. It remains unclear who the author or inventor of a work or invention by an AI will be. AI may also lead to intellectual property disputes. AI must carry out "deep learning” and "deep thinking” through certain procedures. The AI might collect and store large amounts of information in which other people enjoy intellectual property protection. This creates potential copyright infringement issues. If an AI uses the acquired knowledge and information created by others to create a work, this may constitute plagiarism. This raises the question of who should bear the liability of this infringement- The inventor, the owner, or the AI itself. Although this question falls outside the scope of this research, it should be given priority when dealing with the implications of AI on intellectual property law. This topic has further raised other consequential issues. For example, even if AI were able to receive IP recognition, who would be able to commercialize the exclusive rights? Would there be any incentive to produce more innovations? Also, if ownership is given to the Al developer as a reward for effort and investment, why would the developer involved only during the input stage be rewarded for the final output stage as well? Finally, if the last option is for works produced by AI to fall into the public domain, why would developers put forth the mental and financial efforts to develop AI with vigour? As technological advances in Al continue to gather speed and threaten to disrupt intellectual property rights, this research looks at whether the law needs to be updated to make sure that the IP incentives to create and innovate that have worked in the past remain effective in the future. This research assesses Uganda’s IP readiness for the era of Artificial Intelligence. The purpose of this book is to ascertain the status of works created by Artificial Intelligence under Uganda’s current Intellectual Property legal regime and to assess Uganda’s readiness for the era of Artificial intelligence. Further to ascertain the terms under which works autonomously created by AI can be granted protection under Uganda’s Intellectual Property legal framework, this coupled with identifying best practices from other jurisdictions that are being used to grant protection to works autonomously created by AI, hence providing recommendations on how Uganda’s intellectual property law can be updated to incentivize AI-generated works in Uganda. In light of WIPO consultations that commenced on 26th September 2019 to address Artificial intellectual property rights of AI, this research is timely. Most of the literature on whether AI can own intellectual property rights and how IP law can be amended to carter for AI is from developed countries like US & UK. There is an existing gap in literature from developing countries like Uganda, which, although they are not experiencing rapid technological developments in AI, will nevertheless be affected by AI's disruptiveness especially to their legal regime especially intellectual property. This research seeks to cover this gap by addressing how Uganda’s IP law can be updated to carter for AI-generated works. This research will be done while taking into account Uganda's unique circumstances as a developing country. Artificial Intelligence is expected to continue to grow and permeate all aspects of our lives. AI is already part of our lives in many ways for example, email spam filters, smart email categorization, plagiarism checkers, and so on.3 AI has grown and developed to the point where it is able to create artistic works and inventions which qualify for intellectual property protection.