This reminds me of an early scene in the film adaptation of Asimov's "Bicentennial Man" when robots had no individual rights at all.
The robot in question presents anomalous behavior such as creativity and curiosity. US Robotics offers a free replacement for this defective unit but the owner refuses much to the chagrin of US Robotics; the owner and family want this defective, creative, curious robot.
Along the way of making and selling high-quality clocks, the robot incurs some minor damage which requires repair at US Robotics.
The owner, his robot, and his lawyer get face time with the US Robotics CEO and corporate lawyer. "We've installed warning sensors around key points of this robot's positronic brain. Whilst repairing his damaged finger, if we detect any incursion into his positronic brain, we shall sue you and this company for the loss of all of his potential revenue that he could have made from now until the end of time."
A few hard swallows later and the robot walks out with a restored finger and an undamaged, anomalous positronic brain.
In not-unplausible future reality: the anomalous robot dies about 2 and a half years old because of planned obsolescence, warranty is product-lifetime.
ai is ridiculously easier to clean room reverse if you have the dataset. but yeah, if you use some tensorflow knockoff to create art that art might not belong to you
That's a ridiculous idea. AI is a machine like anything else. If I use any other machine to produce a creative work, I own the rights to it. There is no reason for tensorflow to be treated differently.
(edit: artwork is probably not a great 1-1 example here because it is not patentable.)
1. AI is by far our least machine-like invention yet. Our ability to predict the choices a state of the art AI makes, or even reason about them, is extremely limited. As a relevant example, I would argue that AlphaGo's move 37 was creativity by the AI and not its creators, none of whom was a Go grandmaster.
2. AIs can iterate and output creative works extremely rapidly. If we credit all such creative works to the AI's creator with the current IP approach, it would allow them to amass a potential treasure trove of IP that would put everything that came before to shame. And if they then use this for litigation, then the future could be very gloomy for a while.
1. This is again not unique to AI. Mankind has created a lot of inventions which work via mechanisms that humans do not fully understand. A lack of human understanding into an invention's detail of operation does not indicate that the invention itself possesses creativity. e.g.: [0]
2. Creativity is not a fixed resource that is allocated.
> If we credit all such creative works to the AI's creator with the current IP approach
This is not the current approach. This is what the Artificial Inventor Project is lobbying the USPTO to do, and it is what I am criticizing.
My guess is the Patent Office doesn't want to be swamped by some machine learning equivalent of adding 'on a computer' to every verb in the dictionary.
There's no viable technical or legal definition of "artificial intelligence."
If this were allowed to pass, Adobe would be able to make co-creator copyright claims on your photos because Photoshop's masking tools contain AI features (according to their definition anyway).
Patents should be eradicated from this planet. China will outgrow US/EU/Japan because they have little enforcement for these things and execution matters, not ideas.
China has 1,400 million people, US has 330 million people, and EU has 445 million people. Raw GDP is important for military power, but it’s Per Capita GDP that’s important for citizens.
China’s relative growth rate has been slowing down over the last 30 year, making long term projections difficult.
I also oppose the idea of patents and most IP generally as causing more negatives than positives. But I'd fully expect China to increasingly protect IP as they develop, ultimately becoming just like everyone else.
I'd wager that the overwhelming vast majority of patents are incremental ideas that all experts in the specialization are capable of producing on their own.
And the ones that aren't incremental are mostly just prophetic and useless to society. E.g. use VR to train surgeons or perform surgery. I bet there's many patents out there like that and if you followed them on the day they were filed you'd only kill patients.
> In the West everything is for the self. We're happy to tear each other apart for the chance at getting some individual gains.
If that were the case, we wouldn't have the concept of "the West". The West is a collectivist idea.
As a matter of fact, "the West" is even more of a collectivist idea than china since china is a nation but "the West" is a collection of nations centered around race/culture.
For china to be "collectivistic" on our level, they'd have to build up an idea of "the East" or "East Asia" Or "Asia" to counter "the West". They, being too shortsighted or individualistic, haven't created such an idea/institution.
The "individualistic" west and "collectivist" east is nonsense. People are people and it's the same all around. Was the US, british empire or nazi germany any less collectivistic than china today? Is white supremacy or german nationalism any less collectivistic than chinese nationalism or japanese nationalism?
The collective, nationalistic culture of China isn't a fact in dispute. The fact that the West acts as a union of extremely disparate and unique nations in league is not even remotely comparable to China's united national front.
> The collective, nationalistic culture of China isn't a fact in dispute.
Really? If they are so collectivistic and nationalistic, how come there is two of them ( china and taiwan )?
> The fact that the West acts as a union of extremely disparate and unique nations
Extremely disparate and unique? It's pretty much a white western european club. If we are so different what is this borg-like idea of "western values"? There is nothing unique about "the West". Actually, "the West" is the antithesis of unique. We are borg-like in our insistence that everyone adopt "western values" - whatever nonsense that is.
> in league is not even remotely comparable to China's united national front.
I know. That's my point. The West is even a greater kind of collectivism. It's a higher form of collectivism which allows the West to rule "the Rest".
At a national level, the collectivism is pretty much the same. What makes the West unique is that have a higher form of collectivism. It's why "the West", not an individual country is attacking china. It's also why there is no "the East" backing/helping china.
The silliness about western individuality and eastern collectivism is a decades old trope not born out in reality - at an individual, national or supranational level.
It's pretty clear which of those better achieves the goals of the nation, but the question is who sets the goals of the nation. The individualistic Western way makes incremental progress on a lot of goals, some of which will be good and some of which will be bad. The totalitarian way makes enormous progress on a single goal (or small packet of goals), which is amazing to the extent that they're good and devastating to the extent that they're bad.
(Unfortunately, both ways lead to the concentration of power in a few hands—either the hands of those with the most wealth to advance their individual agenda, or the hands of those with the power to make their individual agenda the collective agenda.)
I think predicting any kind of social behavior 50 years in advance is well beyond any scientific method at the moment.
Before those two revolutions that you mention, and even in spite of them in some areas, China has also had remarkable stability for hundreds if not thousands of years. Are these revolutions just blips? Are they a new pattern?
And for that matter, are the Maoist and current regime that different for the common people of China from the Imperial regime before them? Or are these revolutions more just changes in window-dressing and in the upper echelons, like the Mongol conquest before them?
I don't know enough about Chinese history to know how to evaluate the present.
Is it realistic thought that a similar revolution could even happen in 21st century China? It seems like they have all the apparatus in place to prevent that (mass surveillance, information controls, no freedom to protest/demand, a strong and stable military, etc).
I simply don't understand how we managed to justify this patent and intellectual property mess in the capitalist system. Capitalism is all about competition and the right to choose the better product, whereas the current system encourages monopoly. I don't understand.
The big Isms don’t exist in the real world - every country is a mixed economy to a greater or lesser degree.
IP is a bargain between state and author. The state agrees to let the author charge rent on their IP for a limited period of time, thus incentivizing the creation of that IP. In return, the public gets to enjoy that IP’s existence - and eventually enjoy it for free.
How long should the limit be? Here lies the debate. The longer the period, the greater the incentive to invest in production of the IP. For example, a movie studio spends $300m+ on a movie because they expect to gain that back via an income stream that lasts for many decades. If their period of protection was only, say, 5 years, their return on investment would be less and thus the investment amount would be less.
So one way to think about the copyright protection length is to ask: do we want to live in a world where investing $300m+ in a movie is a rational thing to do, or would we be content with movies costing no more than $30m, or $3m?
Sure, celebrities are paid too much, but for some variation of this argument you may agree that reduced copyright terms limit the type of movies that can be made.
You can substitute movies for pharmaceuticals if you like - longer patent terms mean a bigger payoff for investing in new medical research. Tweak patent length and you change what drugs exist.
I personally disagree with the patentability of some things (like software), and with the length of copyright, but I also like that movies like, say, Lord of the Rings exist, so it’s not a trivial issue for me. I want a healthy public domain but I also would be sad if the Bakshi LOTR version was all we ever had.
But copyright is not 5 years right now, it's 70 years after the death of the creator. You say the longer the period, the greater the incentive to invest, but there are definitely diminishing returns there. Does anyone actually believe we would have greater investment if it was 80 years? Or 90 years? Maybe it should be 300 years, for all those companies looking for investments that take centuries to be realized.
And look at all amazing work that has been produced based on public domain works, the Disney movie empire was basically created on it.
I think we can pretty much say that yes, reduced copyright terms would increase the types of movies that we see.
Unfortunately though it's no longer a bargain between state and individual inventors for the most part.
From what ive gathered it is no longer a system that can be used meaningfully by you or me, either to get a useful patent or to enforce an infringed one.
There is no idealism at the upper level. Capitalism-in-practice is about a single concern: each individual trying to maximize their own wealth. This is especially true for corporate entities, which have a particular kind of single-mindedness, by virtue of not being physical people.
Given that observation, it is natural to expect that anything which can maximize the wealth of the most powerful individuals will be adopted into law (since by definition the most powerful are the ones that can influence law making the most). So you have patent laws, you have propaganda and laws against the threat of global warming, you have propaganda and laws against protections from Covid19 etc.
Coincidentally, capitalism-in-practice abhors competition. "Competition is for losers" as the old adage goes - the winners are the ones who have no competition at all. Corporations will generally go out of their way to avoid competing directly with other corporations, as that is usually perceived as a race to the bottom for profits and prices. It is often preferred to find separate niches or expand the market rather than going for direct competition, unless one corporation feels like they have a good chance of monopolizing a particular market after they start competing.
My first thought is that this perspective is conflating Capitalism with a Free Market.
Free Markets are about competition and consumer rights.
Capitalism - from what I've read - is about a minority having the decision making power with regards to capital allocation.
So the USA has a free market system ran by capitalists. I would argue that IP laws can be favorable from the perspective of Capitalism but not the Free Market.
The capitalists own the patents and have the wealth to _incentivize_ the law makers to make IP protection laws.
Capitalism, as defined by communists is about the "private ownership of the means of production". The term has now been widely adopted, even by its defenders, although we don't care specifically about the means of production, we defend property whenever it enhances the freedom of the human individual (an abstract individual, not any specific person).
Intellectual "property" doesn't enhance freedom in any way. Most libertarians and philosophical defenders of capitalism agree with me on this (except Ayn Rand fans)
Thanks for the response - I'm pretty new to the literature so I'm happy to have corrections!
I might be lacking some nuance here, but "private ownership of the means of production" sounds equivalent to my statement about making decisions about capital allocation, in that the means of production is one form of capital. Not trying to be pedantic, just looking to understand the difference :)
That would be more of an oligopoly. Capitalism and free markets are more or less the same thing. However certain forms of regulation and lobbying can result in oligopies also known as 'crony capitalism'.
No. Free markets are theorized in liberalism, capitalism is just a nice way to says that companies belong to people who bought the tools, not peopl who operate them. You can have a communist liberalism (the "liberal anarchism described by Decoeur is pretty close to that), or (better) something in between like in germany or sweeden and Denmark with 33% of the voting power is given to employees, with an annual prime given to them depending on reversed dividends. Germany have a free market but is not a 100% capitalist country.
Because actual capitalism was co-opted a long time ago by large powerful corporations who don't like to lose and have the money to stifle human creativity and general societial progress by lobbying authorities to ensure they never lose.
The US Const. was unique in that it called for IP rights to vest in the individual inventors/creators.
This was done deliberately in the time when kings could grant patents to anyone they choose.
Unfortunately, this US rule was significantly weakened by the America Invents Act (2011). The AIA, among other things, changed US law to a first-to-file scheme rather than a first-to-invent scheme. This change favors big corps because they tend to file patents early before public disclosure of the inventions.
Capitalism is about socializing losses, and privatizing profits.
It's about building moats to prevent competition.
It's about lobbying to raise the drawbridge after you won.
That's the reality of US capitalism.
If you want to see a billionaire smile, just say "Capitalism is all about competition." I guarantee it will make his day. You might even get a pat on the head!
It does however prevent someone from stating that anyone that makes use of their AI to derive something new owes them, and that the new invention belongs to that original creator.
I recall a seminar in grad school where they had a legal scholar come in and I remember her saying that the general prescient for ai is that it's viewed as a tool for creating the end product. I.e. my pen didn't make the patent for Jim's Amazing Patent (tm), but I did and I used the pen to design and sketch it out.
In a lawsuit, each inventor can be forced to sit for an hours-long deposition, under oath. Better hope you don't screw up the answer to any of the questions...
This collides with other rulings, or seems too. For example, from Wikipedia[1]:
"The laws of the United States hold that a legal entity (like a corporation or non-profit organization) shall be treated under the law as a person except when otherwise noted. This rule of construction is specified in 1 U.S.C. §1 (United States Code), which states:
In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise—
the words "person" and "whoever" include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals;"
If a corporation can own patents and have legal personhood, then you might get to the point where an AI is the corporation, and thereby could own patents. I am thinking of the DAO (Distributed Autonomous Corporation). I am also thinking of the Cat series of novels by Joan D. Vinge, which contain an AI run corporation [3].
Another consideration is that we are seeing AIs invent things now in the fields of medicine, material science, music and perhaps others. If AIs own these inventions then whoever owns the AI owns the inventions.
Given the DAO, if an AI can own assets then I don't see any way an AI cannot own a patent.
Yet another angle though is liability. If an asset owned by the AI is found to be the cause of someone getting injured, then who is at fault? Who has to pay damages?
The USPTO is requiring inventors to be natural persons, this excludes corporations. In the US, corporations can be patent applicants but the inventors must be natural persons.
DAOs still have shareholders - any AI they may have seems like it is limited to operational decision making. The DAO may own assets on behalf of its shareholders but the AI doesn't own anything.
Until AIs have recognized rights that include property rights, AIs cannot own anything.
Interesting point - I think the Ted Chiang novella 'The Lifecycle of Software Objects' also include AI pets that develop to the point that they start asking their owners that they be incorporated so they may be given basic rights.
> If a corporation can own patents and have legal personhood, then you might get to the point where an AI is the corporation, and thereby could own patents.
Patents can be assigned to corporations, but corporations cannot be named inventors.
AI is closer to a tool, like a spreadsheet or a search engine, than an organization like a corporation. Semantic arguments that liken AI to humans are insanely premature.
Do you mean AI find things? Current AIs are just a complex algorithm for searching or approximating stuff. You might argue that some algorithms "learn" but that is just an algorithm that is adjusting some weights based on some algorithm someone created. AI is a tool, tools don't invent things. Maybe future AI like the ones in SciFi could invent things but for now we don't know that is even possible.
Anything an existing AI "invented" is not an invention. It should go directly to common knowledge. One could argue the AI that did the inventing could be patented somehow.
The robot in question presents anomalous behavior such as creativity and curiosity. US Robotics offers a free replacement for this defective unit but the owner refuses much to the chagrin of US Robotics; the owner and family want this defective, creative, curious robot.
Along the way of making and selling high-quality clocks, the robot incurs some minor damage which requires repair at US Robotics.
The owner, his robot, and his lawyer get face time with the US Robotics CEO and corporate lawyer. "We've installed warning sensors around key points of this robot's positronic brain. Whilst repairing his damaged finger, if we detect any incursion into his positronic brain, we shall sue you and this company for the loss of all of his potential revenue that he could have made from now until the end of time."
A few hard swallows later and the robot walks out with a restored finger and an undamaged, anomalous positronic brain.