Who owns the intellectual property in a world run by AI? Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto
The distinction between computation and consciousness is central to understanding why legal debates over AI ownership remain unsettled.
The decisions we take today will shape the future of intellectual property and the meaning of authorship, innovation and human identity.
The question of whether artificial intelligence (AI) is conscious is one of the most critical scientific, philosophical and societal issues of our time. If machines were to achieve even a form of consciousness, the consequences would extend far beyond science fiction. They would disrupt legal systems, challenge our assumptions about what it means to be human and reshape how we think about creativity and ownership.
Already, AI generates art, designs drugs and imitates human imagination. This raises a fundamental question. Who, if anyone, truly owns these creations? Can AI ever be considered an author or inventor? Or do rights belong exclusively to humans?
Consciousness can, to some, be understood as being in touch with who we are. Eastern traditions have long explored this subtler dimension of being. Western philosophy and neuroscience continue to grapple with what philosopher David Chalmers famously called the “hard problem of consciousness.” The challenge is to explain why and how a physical system gives rise to subjective experience.
Leading theories of consciousness, such as Global Workspace and Attention Schema, point to criteria like unified awareness, self-reflection and intentionality. Current AI systems, however advanced in pattern recognition or generative capability, do not meet these requirements. Empirical markers used to evaluate consciousness, from integrated information to first-person phenomenology, remain absent in machine architectures.
In other words, AI may be intelligent, but without compassion or lived experience it cannot be considered conscious in the human sense. This distinction between computation and consciousness is central to understanding why legal debates over AI ownership remain unsettled.
How the Forum helps leaders make sense of AI and collaborate on responsible innovation
The Centre for AI Excellence connects leaders across sectors to make sense of the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence and its implications for economies and societies. It supports informed dialogue on opportunities, risks and trade-offs linked to AI adoption.
Through trusted spaces and collaborative initiatives, the Centre enables partners to build shared understanding and work together on responsible approaches to AI innovation and use.
Intellectual property systems evolved on the assumption that creativity is uniquely human. Copyrights, patents and trademarks all rest on the idea that a human author, inventor or brand owner exercises intellectual labour and moral agency. Three major theories support this framework. Natural rights view creativity as an extension of human labour and personality. Utilitarianism grants limited monopolies to encourage innovation. Personhood theory treats creative works as extensions of human identity. None of these frameworks applies easily to machines. AI does not labour in the Lockean sense, does not need incentives and does not express a self.
Courts have already drawn this line. In 2023, the UK Supreme Court ruled that AI cannot be named as an inventor in patent applications, affirming that inventorship requires a natural person. In copyright law, the recent $1.5 billion Anthropic settlement over the use of copyrighted materials for training AI systems illustrates how human authorship is being defended against machine-made outputs. The law still treats creativity as an act rooted in human consciousness.
Responsible machine learning can still protect intellectual property – here’s how
Human creativity is shaped by cognition, emotion and lived experience. AI outputs, although striking, lack the intentional and experiential grounding that intellectual property frameworks recognize. Research on human creativity confirms that authorship is not just about output, but about context, meaning and purpose.
At the same time, some AI systems appear to replicate features of consciousness, such as perception, reasoning and even forms of self-reference. In 2022, a Google engineer claimed that LaMDA, an advanced chatbot, had developed sentience after it described itself as aware and capable of emotions. While these claims remain controversial, they highlight how easily intelligence can be mistaken for consciousness.