This week, the intellectual discussion on artificial intelligence has taken a big step forward. For the first time in history, an AI has been granted a patent, and (as a consequence) has been legally equated to a human being capable of intellectual originality and deserving the protection of such originality.

The story comes from South Africa, where an AI called DABUS (“Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience”) was listed as the inventor of a food container based on fractal geometry, which makes it easier for automated systems to store and locate the items desired. The inventor, DABUS, is part of a family of artificial intelligences, which through advanced machine learning are capable of simulating human brainstorming and even “imagination,” in the words of their creator, Stephen Thaler.

The story comes from South Africa, where an AI called DABUS was listed as the inventor of a food container based on fractal geometry. 

Dr. Thaler requested the recognition of this patent on behalf of the AI he created in various countries, before being granted the rights to this invention in South Africa (and shortly after that in Australia). As AI law expert Meshandren Naidoo reports, this has created a short-circuit in the legal world, since it impacts the possibility of attributing rights and mental agency to non-human intelligences.

Intellectual property rights, which protect “intangible creations” of the intellect, include inventions and designs, but also artistic and literary products. This is the first time that an official body grants a non-human intelligence property over an intangible creation. The conundrum is that most official definitions of IP rights, including the one employed by the World Trade Organization, clearly specify that IP rights can only be attributed to “persons, over the creations of their minds. They usually give the creator an exclusive right over the use of his/her creation for a certain period of time”. The key word here is “person”: are South Africa and Australia granting DABUS a patent implying that an AI is effectively a person and has a “mind”? Or was this a legal mistake? Is the ruling valid or invalid, given that AIs are not juridic persons, as of now?

Apart from the legal debate, the philosophical reasons that spur us to take notice of this news story are multifaceted and pressing. The technologies employing artificial intelligences in the role of problem solvers and solution creators are quickly increasing in number and complexity. In a parallel manner, our conceptual capability of capturing what is meant by “inventing” and “creating” must face some variation, to adapt to the rapidly evolving world of …

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