Balancing Innovation and Intellectual Property in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is utilized frequently. Using a virtual or personal assistant or riding in a mostly autonomous car are examples of how it has merged into daily life. It is also fueling a fascination for figuring out or foreseeing complex issues in fields like medicine, law enforcement, and justice, among others.
Since AIs are highly adaptable, a wide range of goals, including automatic natural language processing, knowledge representation, automated reasoning, machine learning, computer vision, and robotics, to mention a few, can be pursued. In this final instance, AI systems are behaving in a hardware-integrated virtual environment in addition to operating at the software level.
Three key areas of overlap that exist between AI and IP are: AI as a technology that might help with managing intellectual property rights; IP as a method for protecting AI; and IP as a barrier to the openness of AI systems. As one can see, there is a reciprocal relationship between these two: AI affects IP, and IP affects AI.
Where Does The Quandary Begin?
A legal framework that can safeguard AI is intellectual property. AI is already having, and will probably continue to have, a big impact on how economic and cultural goods and services are produced, created, and distributed. One of the primary objectives of IP policy is to promote innovation and creativity in the commercial and technological spheres, which are natural areas of intersection between AI and IP.
Some of the issues that are raised are: Should the law authorize an AI application to claim inventorship, or should a human be listed as the inventor? If so, should the law specify how to identify the human inventor, or should it leave it up to the parties involved to reach a private agreement? Who should be listed as the proprietor of a patent including an AI application is also a significant concern.
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If one believes that IP rights should be used to defend AI systems, then one raises further concerns that IP rights may still provide a barrier to the openness of AI systems.
While there is currently a push for algorithmic decision-making systems to be more transparent and accountable, it is unclear how to meet this requirement when a machine learning process involves multiple data sources, dynamic development, and elements that are opaque for either technological or legal reasons.
So How Do We Tackle This With The Current Obstacles?
However, the threat to businesses’ intellectual property has largely gone unnoticed as a severe risk of artificial intelligence. Existing legal frameworks are insufficient to fend off the particular dangers that AI poses.
Stephen Hawking forewarns,
“Whereas the short-term impact of AI depends on who controls it, the long-term impact depends on whether it can be controlled at all.”
It is undeniable that AI will quickly replace human employees, that it will rapidly evolve on its own, that it cannot be taught or constrained by morals, and that the “AI of Things” is already here. Leading brains are constantly attempting to improve AI so that it goes beyond the limitations of its initial programming.
The creation of techniques that allow AI to evaluate a situation and decide for itself whether to “follow” an “order/command” from a human or decide that it is in the “best interest” of the AI-enhanced robot to ignore the prompt and operate differently is included in this.
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At the same time, we are still unable to “teach” AI “morality”. What Mr. Hawking refers to as “an IT arms race fuelled by unprecedented investments and building on an increasingly mature theoretical foundation” is just getting started.
However, unlike humans, AI may jeopardize IP and other cloud ownership, whether or not humans are involved or acting in a “greedy” manner.
The creation of a legal and technical regulatory framework that can decide whether a person or an AI machine has broken the law and take the proper corrective action is what appears to be urgently required.
Conclusion
We, as a society, should undoubtedly take into account several other important issues about how to control how AI accesses and uses IP at work as we are the technological and legal innovators of the globe. AI is being used more and more in IP administration to manage applications for IP security.
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The most pertinent methods of protection for AI are patent and copyright laws, mainly when inventions can be produced autonomously by AI. This discussion must take place right away, not after AI has already begun to work, and must be followed by legislative action.
