A landmark ruling from the UK Supreme Court says AI can’t be credited as the inventor in patents under its laws.
After a year of generative AI taking the world by storm, it’s clear artificial intelligence is here for good and will change the way we interact with technology. Just hours ago, I asked ChatGPT Plus to make me a list of every European marathon event in chronological order and make the entries hosting semi-marathon races bold. It failed twice, as the task was too big for GPT-4.
We then settled on doing just January. This time, it worked. The list was done in a few seconds.
These are trivial endeavors, of course, but services like ChatGPT are expected to do amazing things down the road. The same people who worry about AI ending humanity also expect the AI they’re developing to fix many important world problems, such as inventing things that we can’t invent right now because we’re simply not as bright.
Before we get there, we’ll have to figure out how to credit AI for its inventions. The UK Supreme Court just issued a landmark ruling that says AI can’t be the inventor of patents. Only “natural persons” can be inventors.
Wait a second. Is AI already inventing stuff that’s worth patenting? Apparently, the answer is yes. Certain AI software can invent things. I doubt we’ve reached FOOM levels — not that AI would necessarily let us know.
