Copyright law will shape how we use generative AI

In the year since the release of ChatGPT, generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been moving fast and breaking things, and copyright law is only beginning to catch up. Intellectual property law has shaped the internet for three decades. Now, it will shape the way we use generative AI. In August 2023, a federal court in Washington, D.C. ruled that copyright law only extends to humans, meaning that any work of art created with AI and without human input can't be copyrighted. Once humans alter that AI-created material in any way, the legal waters get murky, and we still have no idea how the law will handle disputes over attribution and disclosure. The U.S. Copyright Office posted a notice of inquiry and recently published submitted comments on AI-related questions, including the use of copyrighted works to train AI models, the ability to copyright anything generated with AI, and how to treat AI that's designed to imitate the the style of human artists.