CLP - Artificial Intelligence and the Trouble for Authorship

Speaker: Prof. Johanna Gibson (Queen Mary, University of London)

Chair: TBC

Throughout the popular and scholarly discourse on artificial intelligence (AI) and the impact on works of authorship, several themes continue to dominate the discussion: speed in the production of materials; volume in the capacity of machine outputs; and the nature of the human use of AI for the purposes of authorship, leading to calls from some quarters for new theories of creativity and indeed new legal conceptualisations of originality. All of these concerns converge in the concept of effort; either alleviating it or measuring it for the purposes of authorship. But what is effort? Tech companies might have us believe that a prime objective of generative-AI is to reduce the effort expended by humans, in time, in cost, and in ingenuity. But this has curious legal, social, and cognitive connotations and consequences. In the context of academic and legal practice, the rise in misrepresentation and misconduct is a cause for considerable concern and paradoxically leads to further effort, rather than relieving it. Alongside these issues, reports of general decline in cognitive attention and curiosity suggest not only an undesirable consequence of this machinic delegation, but also a very real loss in the play of authorship. The question is, do we really want to make less effort? Effort, and the loss of it, comes at a cost. Without effort, does the tremendous speed and volume of generative-AI translate merely into idle talk rather than the joy of the work? This lecture will consider the nature of authorship, the attention in creativity, and the potential for a theory of effort in contemporary copyright law.

Johanna Gibson is Herchel Smith Professor of Intellectual Property Law at Queen Mary, University of London, where she teaches and researches in intellectual property, with a particular focus on the creative industries and legal theory. She is author of several books, the most recent being Wanted, More Than Human Intellectual Property: Animal Authors and Human Machines (2025), in which she examines authorship and the potential or otherwise for nonhuman creativity and authorship. Gibson is also editor-in-chief of the Queen Mary Journal of Intellectual Property, a member of the Research Expert Advisory Group to the Intellectual Property Office, holds visiting academic positions around the world, and consults widely to industry, government, non-governmental organisations, and the profession.

The Current Legal Problems (CLP) lecture series and annual volume was established over fifty five years ago at the Faculty of Laws, University College London and is recognised as a major reference point for legal scholarship. Sign up for the mailing list to receive emails about Current Legal Problems lectures

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