HBKU’s College of Law considers AI, art and legal challenges

HBKU’s College of Law considers AI, art and legal challenges

The College of Law at Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) recently hosted its first seminar in the Law and Tech Talk (LTT) Series, featuring three Education City artists who described how technology, including Artificial Intelligence (AI), is shaping their art. Their insights fostered a critique of the existing legal regime to protect artists.

Art has evolved side-by-side with the developments in technology. The three Education City-based artists have been demonstrating how, with the emergence of technology, computers can create sophisticated works of art in a way that could minimise, or even eliminate, human input. Hadeer Omar, assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar (VCUarts Qatar); Jesse Payne, associate professor, VCUarts Qatar; and Dr James She, associate professor, College of Science and Engineering, HBKU, have been at the forefront of their field. Dr She, a computer engineer by training, launched the first AI and art event in Qatar in 2019.

The legal implications of the art they generate, through AI technologies and other digital tools, are slowly emerging. The seminar presented several open-ended questions and explored whether the result is actually art, who the artist is, and the nature of ownership when reflecting the artwork of others