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US patent office rules that artificial intelligence cannot be a legal inventor

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21–30 of 74 posts

Re: US patent office rules that artificial intelligence cannot be a legal inventor

#21

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 indi…

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.

Re: US patent office rules that artificial intelligence cannot be a legal inventor

#22

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.

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.

Re: US patent office rules that artificial intelligence cannot be a legal inventor

#23
post #16
post #2

This seems like a trivial administrative hurtle. My AI didn't invent that, I did....

This AI did invent anything in a vacuum. There is some analogy to a fitness function that drove it to a result. It is not self aware.

> It is not self aware

It's a bold move to encode that into law when we don't know if that woll hold true in some decades.

Re: US patent office rules that artificial intelligence cannot be a legal inventor

#24

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.

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.

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.

Re: US patent office rules that artificial intelligence cannot be a legal inventor

#25

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.

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.

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.

Re: US patent office rules that artificial intelligence cannot be a legal inventor

#26

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.

IP norms are a small reason among many related reasons why China will outgrow US/EU/Japan.

In China, everything is for the collective, the nation, the 100-year plan.

In the West everything is for the self. We're happy to tear each other apart for the chance at getting some individual gains.

I think it's pretty clear which of these cultures wins out in the long term.

Re: US patent office rules that artificial intelligence cannot be a legal inventor

#27

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 indi…

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.

Re: US patent office rules that artificial intelligence cannot be a legal inventor

#28

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 indi…

>AIs invent things now

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.

Re: US patent office rules that artificial intelligence cannot be a legal inventor

#29

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.

IP norms are a small reason among many related reasons why China will outgrow US/EU/Japan. In China, everything is for the collective, the nation, the 100-year plan. In the West everything is for the self. We're happy to tear each other apart for the chance at getting some individual gains. I think it's pretty clear which of these cultures wins out in the long term.

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.)

Re: US patent office rules that artificial intelligence cannot be a legal inventor

#30

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 indi…

>AIs invent things now 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 poss…

This seems to rely on a fine parsing of 'invent', which is probably as fruitless as the fine parsing of whether AI 'thinks'.
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