Man versus machine Judge disses Star Trek icon Datas poetry while ruling AI cant author works Computer scientist won't give up fight to copyright AI-made art after court loss. Ashley Belanger Mar 19, 2025 11:52 am | 31 Court ruling that AI cannot author works points to Data's bad poetry in a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode called "Schisms." Credit: Paramount Television Court ruling that AI cannot author works points to Data's bad poetry in a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode called "Schisms." Credit: Paramount Television Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreA computer scientist who tried to register an artwork that credited an artificial intelligence system as the sole author lost his appeal on Tuesday.A three-judge panel for the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously agreed with the Copyright Office that Stephen Thaler's AI software cannot be granted authorship. Copyright law "requires all work to be authored in the first instance by a human being," Judge Patricia Millett wrote in her opinion."Because many of the Copyright Act's provisions make sense only if an author is a human being, the best reading of the Copyright Act is that human authorship is required for registration," Millett wrote.Thaler had tried to argue that copyright laws were woefully outdated, and laws should change to copyright works made by a generative AI software that he created called the "Creativity Machine." He further claimed that "judicial opinions 'from the Gilded Age' could not settle the question of whether computer-generated works are copyrightable today."Nowhere in the Copyright Act is "author" defined, Thaler argued, potentially leaving room for today's courts to interpret the statute as permitting wholly AI-generated works to be copyrighted. Throwing the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of "author" at the court, Thaler invited the court to land on a looser interpretation than the Copyright Office was willing to make. If the court did not take his side, Thaler fretted that artists wouldn't be incentivized to use AI to produce creative works, defeating the purpose of copyright laws, he argued."Nothing in the Copyright Act requires human creation," Thaler argued in court last January, Reuters reported. "What the Act's language indicates is that when an entitya natural person, a corporation, a machinegenerates a creative work, that entity is the author."But Millett pushed back, writing that "statutory construction requires more than just finding a sympathetic dictionary definition.""The text of multiple provisions of the statute indicates that authors must be humans, not machines," the judge said, pointing to numerous examples.Machines dont have lives or spouses, judge notedPerhaps most glaringly, the duration of copyright is typically limited to "the authors lifespan or to a period that approximates how long a human might live," Millett wrote."Of course, machines do not have 'lives,' nor is the length of their operability generally measured in the same terms as a human life," Millett wrote.Additionally, the judge noted that the statute allows copyrights to be transferred to surviving spouses or children, which machines do not have. It also refers to authors' domiciles and nationalities, which machines do not have. And critically, authors granted copyrights have intentions, whereas "machines lack minds and do not intend anything," Millett wrote.Accepting Thaler's arguments would mean "problematic questions would arise about a machines 'life' and 'death,'" Millett wrote. "And 'machine' would inconsistently mean both an author and a tool used by authors."Judge mocks Datas poetry, says machines cant be authorsIn the court's view, the statute considers machines to always be tools, never authors. That includes Thaler's Creativity Machine, Millett wrote. She urged that Thaler's arguments would be best made to Congress or the Copyright Office, not to courts.However, according to the judge, "the Creativity Machine does not represent the limits of human technical ingenuity when it comes to artificial intelligence," and Congress or the Copyright Office could adapt laws or guidance if "humans at some point might produce creative non-humans capable" of being incentivized to create artworks, as humans are.To support her vision of some future technology, Millett pointed to the Star Trek: The Next Generation character Data, a sentient android who memorably wrote a poem to his cat, which is jokingly mocked by other characters in a 1992 episode called "Schisms." StarTrek.com posted the full poem, but here's a taste:"Felis catus is your taxonomic nomenclature, / An endothermic quadruped, carnivorous by nature; / Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses / Contribute to your hunting skills and natural defenses.I find myself intrigued by your subvocal oscillations, / A singular development of cat communications / That obviates your basic hedonistic predilection / For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection."Data "might be worse than ChatGPT at writing poetry," but his "intelligence is comparable to that of a human being," Millet wrote. If AI ever reached Data levels of intelligence, Millett suggested that copyright laws could shift to grant copyrights to AI-authored works. But that time is apparently not now."There will be time enough for Congress and the Copyright Office to tackle those issues when they arise," Millett wrote.In the meantime, Millett said that copyright laws leave plenty of room for artists to copyright AI-assisted works, dismissing Thaler's fears that denying a copyright to a work generated by his Creativity Machine would discourage artists broadly from using AI.But Thaler is not planning to back down from the fight, arguing that his Creativity Machine is "sentient." Thaler's attorney, Ryan Abbott, told Reuters that he and Thaler "strongly disagree" with the ruling and intend to appeal.Ashley BelangerSenior Policy ReporterAshley BelangerSenior Policy Reporter Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience. 31 Comments