Review on Robot Rights

The first thing that comes to mind at the mention of machine-learning is AI winter; an undying hero fighting an almighty-omniscient and self-righteous computer following the desolation of organic life, human enslavement set against a grotesque apocalyptic backdrop. While this is fantastic in proportions (albeit depressing), it is a growing concern amongst people of certain social demographics that AI is dangerous and incredibly close to unseating human beings on the totem pole of intelligence. This could not be further from the truth, in reality, robot rights are still in a germinal stage, and are far from realising the wealth of potential that could abound. One would assume that because of this the relatively infantile stage of AI, the grant of copyright to computer authors would not be contentious, but it is for this very reason that computer authorship and ownership in the context of copyright is incredibly implausible and problematic. The most notable reason being that there is not yet a suitable justification for the such rights to exist, and no evidentiary instance in which the UK’s provision concerning computer-generated works is proven inefficient has emerged.

Robot rights would be tedious to justify and due to the current legal and industrial landscape, the creation of a specific body of rights for computers would be lofty and inadvisable, as there is a clear distinction between computer originality (creativity) and consciousness. While a computer could theoretically be an author in the sense of Infopaq Originality, no computer can assert their own rights because machine-learning and has not yet achieved such sophistication (i.e. passed the turing test, successfully mind uploaded or become completely self-reliant).

Programmers themselves assert the view that while computers can be creative, their autonomous agency is limited. The potential of works created with artificial-intelligence are still largely unrealised and ultimately computers –– as of now ––– are still very much tools, and are yet to cross the threshold to become autonomous actors in the copyright arena.

Can the UK regime be slated as emphatically insufficient when, in comparison to the US, Australia and Continental Europe, it remains the most balanced regime currently in operation? The law leaves enough leighway for a variety of probable and foreseeable instances, without being overly prescriptive or ambiguous.

This contribution responds to a problem that will no doubt come to many innovation-driven forums, and can be employed as an illuminating body of work which reflects on the past, carefully examines the present and makes informed summations about the current status of computer-generated works and computer authors, and predictions about the future of computer authorship.