Some Good AI News: A lone man's dream of turning his autonomous system into the first case of proper AI copyright has come to an end. The highest court in the US just refused to hear the case, thereby implicitly reaffirming the principle that generative AI's output can neither be protected by the law nor earn digital "AI creators" any money anytime soon.
Computer scientist Stephen Thaler has repeatedly tried to turn an AI-generated image into copyrightable material, but the US Supreme Court has now declined to even hear his arguments. Thaler created the Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience (DABUS) AI system, which was listed as the author of an image full of mangled pixels named "A Recent Entrance to Paradise."
The Missouri-based developer first asked to copyright DABUS' output in 2018, but the US Copyright Office declined his request. Content and art generated by DABUS cannot be considered as worthwhile inventions, because a human creator is still required to be in the loop. The USPTO later updated its guidance on generative-AI initiatives, stating that humans need to make a significant contribution to any invention seeking the protection of the law.
The US Supreme Court had already rejected Thaler's attempt to patent DABUS' alleged original ideas, and is now upholding the previous decision by the USPTO as well. In the 2023 case, the Copyright Office stated that human authorship remains a "bedrock requirement of copyright," while Thaler's lawyers tried to influence the SCOTUS role on the rapid growth of the generative AI business.
"The Copyright Office will have irreversibly and negatively impacted AI development and use in the creative industry during critically important years," Thaler's lawyers said after the USPTO rejected the patent application.
Thaler also tried to patent content generated through DABUS in other parts of the world. The UK Supreme Court rejected his application in 2023, stating that patents can only be registered by humans or human-made companies. He received similar responses from courts in the European Union and Australia, while he scored his only victory in South Africa.
The latest SCOTUS refusal might be the last step in DABUS' journey towards copyrightability. Generative AI technology is now inspiring an increasingly heated debate within the creative industry, and AI companies are trying to set a meaningful precedent that would legitimate their commercial endeavors.
DABUS and "traditional" chatbots such as ChatGPT may be two different kinds of AI technology, but the SCOTUS refusal to even hear the case could have lasting consequences for the generative-AI market. The court ultimately aligned with the Donald Trump administration, which asked the Supreme Court not to hear Thaler's arguments.