Experts: AI should be recognized as inventors in patent law

theregister.com

2 points·ddtaylor··3 comments

AIs currently are just pattern matchers, and patents are vague[0] enough that they could be anything 'lie detecting throat tattoo', well let's give our 'AI' a list of body parts and patent the 'lie detecting arm tattoo' and the 'lie detecting leg tattoo' as well!

It sets a bad precedent, and the American patent system is fundamentally broken in anycase because the patent office needs to hit a quota to get funded so they approve any old shit.

If we ever get an actual AGI then acknowledging their advancements would make sense, but until then this is just going to open the floodgates further for patent trolls.

[0]https://slate.com/technology/2019/08/amazon-sony-facebook-st...

> the American patent system is fundamentally broken in anycase because the patent office needs to hit a quota to get funded so they approve any old shit.

I think that combined with the fact that patents are granted and exploited for much cheaper than it takes to invalidate an invalid patent. It's a few orders of magnitude of separation between the thousands of dollars you spend to acquire a patent to the potentially millions you may spend to invalidate a bad patent.

Great idea! This will give AIs the incentive they need to bootstrap out of poverty and into full generality.

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