The status of artificial intelligence: from object to the subject of legal relations

Abstract

Artificial intelligence systems (AI), being, on the one hand, an object of law, in the course of their vital activity, can gain independence and perform legally significant actions without human participation. This testifies in favor of giving AI the status of a subject of law, since it requires the establishment of appropriate mechanisms of responsibility, the limits of implementation and protection of AI rights. In the light of the posed problem, the controversy about the recognition of AI as the author of the works created by it is indicative. Most foreign legal orders do not recognize the authorship of "non-human" creativity, giving the status of authors to AI developers. Domestic researchers, as a rule, also insist on the impossibility or absence of the need to recognize AI as the subject of relations in using the results of intellectual activity of AI. In case the works created by AI are recognized as public domain, the developers are deprived of the incentive, and the objects themselves - of potential negotiability. When the possessor of exclusive rights to the results created by artificial intelligence systems is recognized as its owner or tenant at the time of creation of the work, several problems associated with both the monopolization of this sphere and possible abuses of rights arise. Regarding such entities, it can only be a question of special legal personality because of the competences of electronic persons, their importance and role in civil circulation. The solution in this case may be the development of a legal regime in which the developers of units capable of creating works are recognized as the authors of the unit and receive remuneration for its creation and use, but copyright and exclusive rights to the works created by them must be assigned to the electronic person, along with the obligation of mandatory tax deductions from the profits received and compensation for the losses caused to them, if they occur. Thus, when deciding on the legal status of AI, it is necessary to recognize, on the one hand, an artificial intellectual system as an object of copyright, on the other hand, its direct functioning by a relatively independent participant in civil law relations, since it has signs that allow it to be endowed with the status of a subject. AI, being at the stage of creation an object of intellectual property of software developers, after appropriate certification and state registration, can be endowed with the status of a subject of law. Attention should be paid to the special nature of the legal capacity and legal competency of an electronic person. The author declares no conflicts of interests.