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Machine-generated works are not eligible for copyright, and courts have been ruling this way about AI content. https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/who-owns-ai-crea... Early days and there are still appeals as well as new legislation in progress, but that's where it stands now.

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In the Monkey selfie copyright dispute Slater could not claim copyright because he did not operate the camera. Corporate personhood or juridical personality is the legal notion that a juridical person such as a corporation, separately from its associated human beings (like owners, managers, or employees), has at least some of the legal rights and responsibilities enjoyed by natural persons. If Mr. Slater was incorporated would his copyright ownership be clear? If an ai was a corporation not an asset of a corporation and could prompt it's self would the output then be copyrightable? There are a lot of ifs in there but still interesting.

IANAL, but I would guess it depends on whether the animal is an "employee" of the company. Obviously there are animals that are owned by companies and, if they create something, the company I assume would own it whether or not it was considered a work for hire in the usual sense. But that would presumably not have been the case here.

Generative AI has basically made what were once fairly irrelevant edge cases (what if I tie together a bunch of random number generators to create art work?) a lot more interesting. And laws will probably have to be adapted.

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