Intelligent machines and possible protection of their works: analyzing AI and Copyrights

In recent years, there has been a rapid development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies. This brings with it significant challenges, particularly the problem of recognizing artistic works, whose authors are intelligent computational systems. In the field of copyright, this has encouraged a reevaluation of the traditional anthropocentric view. The major debate has been considering whether computational outputs can receive protection, whether the requirements of originality, novelty in the works are present and to whom computational outputs can belong. Starting from the origins of AI and copyrights, this thesis presents a preliminary contribution on how copyright protection could be applied to computational works, mainly in order to understand first the compatibility of computational works and legal requirements. It is important to acknowledge that the intelligent computational systems analyzed have a very complex functioning mechanism that, in some aspects, is not even clear to experts working in the sector, leading to serious challenges when it comes to its regulation. Currently there is not a clear general agreement on a solution on how to protect or not this type of works, consequently, for the moment some possible proposals will be analyzed in the following chapters.