The advent of readily accessible artificial intelligence (AI), and particularly generative AI (GAI), has transformed key aspects of business operations ranging from crafting slogans to creating music and art. Alone, these uses represent an exciting frontier in technological capability, but practitioners must be mindful of considerable, still-evolving, legal risks. Specifically, businesses employing GAI for public-facing functions, like marketing, should be conscious of potential intellectual property infringement.
Recent breakthroughs in GAI programming, with systems like ChatGPT, Stable Diffusion, and Midjourney, have made AI technology a common tool in the corporate world. These programs generate novel texts, images, and content, commonly referred to as outputs, that are derived from prompts or commands known as inputs.
However, with the widening applications of GAI come significant intellectual property risks. These risks primarily stem from the fact that these AI-generated outputs could, unwittingly or not, infringe upon the copyright of existing intellectual property. This potential liability has been magnified with the increasing usage of GAI for marketing and other public-facing purposes.
As this technology continues to evolve, it is critical for corporations and law firms alike to have a comprehensive understanding of the intersection between GAI and intellectual property law to prevent copyright infringement and safeguard adequate usage of this revolutionary tool.
To learn more about the legal implications of using GAI in business, it is recommended that you review this comprehensive article about GAI implications in IP law published on Law.com.