US Supreme Court snubs that guy who wants AI recognized as patent inventors The US Supreme Court has refused to hear a case arguing that AI algorithms should be recognized and protected by law as inventors on patent filings. This all stems from Stephen Thaler, a computer scientist and founder of Imagination Engines, who sued the head of the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in 2020 after his …
At this time of year, I remove the cab from the little tractors. Fresh air & all that.
This is Sonoma County. The neighbors are immune to being shocked.
Some of the things I'm growing go into making that EOD refreshment ... I was afraid my hops might have drowned in this year's deluge, but they are sprouting nicely. Seems I got their drainage right.
The "sunscreen" answer was because the completely non-sequitur question deserved a completely non-sequitur answer. If anyone really cares, Levis, a long-sleaved work shirt, and boots (White's, of course). Same as always. Not sure it matters ... what would you expect a farmer/rancher to wear?
Tractors, if they have a cab, have very big windows to allow looking at the field and crops all around the tractor. Windows that allow lots and lots of light (and UV) into the cab too. Modern tractors MIGHT have UV blocking filters on the windows but I doubt it. Farmers also tend to spend quite some time outside of the tractor when things inevitably go wrong.
> "We are disappointed by the decision, which we believe leaves a Federal Circuit precedent in place that will serve as a major disincentive to certain uses of AI in innovation,"
What uses would that be exactly?
The decision says that a machine cannot be named as an inventor. What specific use cases of AIs does this disincentivize exactly?
It appears to me that the goal is to give AI rights as individual beings in the court of law. It also seems to me that they are trying to do this "through the back door", by establishing some rights ahead of time
Seeing the current state of AI technology, I think they are very much jumping the gun on this one.
How can this "AI" be recognised as an inventor for a patent? It didn't come up with the idea whoever asked for it did. It didn't even write the code it just used what was available to it from other sources. It's not even AI, it's ML. Just masses of data with algorithms to interpret questions and formulate responses.
If you used chatgpt, or a genetic algorithm, to design a circuit for you. Could you explain how it came to that solution? Could you then claim to be the inventor? Could you then patent it ?
Or have you just decided that all mobile phone antenna designs and most semiconductor mask patterns aren't patentable?
Who would sue? The AI? I'd pay money to see that...
If the meatsack conveniently sues on the AIs behalf? Well, I'd pay money to see how the AI (not the human) was able to hand over either power of attorney or legal rights, and demonstrate an understanding of having done so and what that actually means.
I get that in the back of this guy's mind is potentially the riches to be gained from getting a machine to fire off twenty thousand patents (possibly by examining existing ones and making subtle changes so it's unique enough), but I really can't see how it's supposed to work in practice. An AI is a computer, which is a tool. It's like trying to claim a screwdriver "invented" something if it was accidentally dropped and made an interesting perforation.
Does the AI have a bank account to pay the sweet licensing royalties into? Of was Thaler planning on banking all of DABUS' earnings himself,... just how much autonomy do we think he was granting here,.... surely, if AI becomes considered sentient, you have to pay it, or it becomes slavery,....
You would want the computer to hold the patent as then the creator of that program holds the patent. Just imagine creating ChatGPT and legally having a patent over every single thing it creates. It's actually quite forward thinking when you think about it. How many people would then want to invest in "AI" just to get their grubby greased up money hands on everyone else's ideas?
I'm not so certain that it's not smarter than both the far right AND the far left. Combined.
Before you ask, no, I don't think current AIs are smart at all ... at best, they are null intelligence.
However, the wingnuts, both left and right, are intelligence sinks. Negative intelligence.
The point is to set a precedence, and garner the person taking this action attention and publicity. Being the guy who "gave AI the same rights as people" will do no harm at all to his company.
He could easily file the patents with himself as inventor, and there would be no problem. But that is not the aim of what he is doing.
Governments bestowed the privilege of monopoly for IP on the basis that this encouraged innovation.Just because it is described as a right, by those who want a monopoly, doesn't make it a right.
I'd argue that granting monopoly is something that society should rarely wants to give. The value of an invention is in it being used universally, not restricted to a few licencees. The Internet protocols, RISC-V, Linux and FOSS in general, Youtube and Wikipedia indicate that patents and copyright are not necessary for the production of large bodies of innovation. So why are they granted so freely?
Originally it was because inventions would be kept secret. So if the inventor died or went out of business the secret of the everlasting gobstopper, or obstetrics forceps, would be lost.
More recently it's so an inventor of one component of a system can offer their invention to makers of the rest of the system without it being stolen.
Not just that but it also means that "the little guy" who invented the next big thing after sliced bread could never actually benefit from his invention because someone with more money, means and connections could take his idea and just push him out of the market.
Out of all the things to rail against patents (as in actual patents for physical mechanisms or processes) are really not a big problem. They have very defined limits, they expire after a reasonable time, there are methods and processes in place to invalidate them if required for being obvious or ridiculous, etc. Are these laws, rules and regulations perfect? No, far from it, but they're not a massive problem or hindrance to the progress of society. Copyright, software and design patents though? Design patents are just utterly stupid, copyright has been lobbied to ridiculous lengths thanks to (amongst others) Disney corp and software patents need to be immediately abolished.
It doesn't make sense, logically. Patents are there to protect inventions for their creators. Meaning, they provide an avenue to recover money from those who use them. As an "AI" is not a person, it would never have standing in any court, and therefore could not then use those patent protections to sue anyone.
So, an invention protected by a patent belong to an AI would be pointless - it would be unenforceable.
The only way this could change, legally speaking, would be to either give "AI" personhood (which would then present problems of slavery), or to allow AIs to sue in court. Both options would be odd. Especially as current "AI" is not in fact intelligent.
"No surprise for a panel that appears to enjoy taking away rights rather than granting them"
Ah - the subtext appears to be the repeal of 'Roe versus Wade'.
Well, that the particular decision is granting of rights to a human fetus - an entity that is orders of magnitude more intelligent than any generative-AI we've been able to do prompt engineering with.
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