Can ChatGPT and the Like Be Your Co-Authors? ¨

Abstract

On November 30, 2022, OpenAI released an AI based chatbot called ChatGPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer). This AI system uses natural language processing (NLP) techniques to generate written text by learning the patterns and structures of natural language. ChatGPT is a versatile chatbot with the ability to write speeches, news articles, and essays either wholly or partially. Some users acknowledge ChatGPT as a co-author of the generated text, while others only acknowledge its use in writing the document. In fact, this issue became so pressing in academia that Springer Nature, the world's largest academic publisher, announced that software like ChatGPT cannot be credited as an author in papers published in its thousands of journals. However, the question of authorship when working with text generator Chatbots remains an open issue. Following the release of ChatGPT other Chatbots, such as Google's Bard and AutoGPT have emerged. It is now clear that these Chatbots are here to stay, and so the issue of co-authorship and IP rights in the final products of these Chatbots became an important legal question. Can ChatGTP and the like be your co-author or whether it is just a tool that assists in writing? This Article further discusses the possibility of granting algorithms with a separated legal personhood. ¨Permission is hereby granted for noncommercial reproduction of this Article in whole or in part for education or research purposes, including the making of multiple copies for classroom use, subject only to the condition that the name of the author, a complete citation, and this copyright notice and grant of permission be included in all copies.

Keywords: ChatGPT, IP, Co-authorship with AI, Algorithmic Legal Personhood

JEL Classification: k2, k20, k23, o31, o34, 035, k11, k39,