Mind or Machine: Who owns the work

“The influence of a lawyer thrives where the law leaves room for interpretation”.

- SANGRAM PATNAIK

The strength of a lawyer resides in navigating the grey zones where the law remains uncertain. Presently, Indian jurisprudence makes no categorical distinction between outputs generated by machines and those conceived through human creativity.

In the present era where Artificial intelligence has taken the driving seat, there remain still unanswered critical questions regarding authorship, ownership, and most importantly ingenuity/ originality/creativity vis-vis permissible use of copyright material in training AI modules.

I often wonder whether time has come where Victorian era Copyright Rules and Regulations are getting crushed under the weight of the machines have created.

Without a shred of doubt, I can say, what a human mind can create, Al cannot, as there is no impressions of emotion or feeling found in it. However we cannot guarantee the same for long.

Given the human mind with the speed at which it is developing the AI, very soon the artificial intelligence may develop sentiments and sensations like we humans have, but, that time will say. Be that as it may, but, what the human mind, can create through its intricate web of memories, imagination by interplay of emotions and cultural influences can an AI do that? It may not be wrong to say the Al is also the creation of the human mind only.

Very interestingly this issue has been described in the words of J Winterson. He describes AI as -Alternative Intelligence and says, “At Times I do feel our generation is a victim of its own accuracy by inventing AI. But it is much more aesthetic to be unhappily in love with AI than being unhappily married to AI. In other words, AT is there to help and assist a creator, not to take credit for the creator which has been very candidly admitted by Mr. Sunder Pichai, “....the future of Al is not about replacing humans; it’s about augmenting human capabilities.” In other words, AI is not to diminish human contribution, but dignify it.