Uganda authors call for a law on Artificial Intelligence
Mr Christopher Lubogo, receives a certificate from Mr Adonia Katungisa, Director National Library of Uganda during the commemoration of World Book and copyright day on Tuesday. Photo | Karim Muyobo
What you need to know:
- While commemorating World Book and copyright day on Tuesday, Mr Isaac Christopher Lubogo, the winner for best individual legal depositor for the year 2023, said that there is a need for a law that can deal with AI to protect the intellectual property of the authors.
Ugandan authors/writers have called for a law on Artificial Intelligence saying that the copyright law only deals with individuals, not machines.
In recent years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has made significant strides in revolutionizing the way people interact with technology and the latest example is ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer), a tool that allows users to enter written prompts to receive human-like responses in text format.
While commemorating World Book and copyright day on Tuesday, Mr Isaac Christopher Lubogo, the winner for best individual legal depositor for the year 2023, said that there is a need for a law that can deal with AI to protect the intellectual property of the authors.
“Authors have to embrace the future, but we have the challenge of AI in terms of copyright because it is going to compete with us. It’s going to be a strong aid in the sense that it will help us to write better, achieve our goals, and move faster but it will be a lazy ‘man tool for those who don’t want to write,” he said
The Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act 2006, states that it is unlawful to use copyrighted musical work without the copyright owner’s consent.
According to Uganda Registration Service Bureau (URSB), copyright law grants authors, artists and other creators protection for their literary and artistic creations, generally referred to as “works.”
The works protected by the law include literary and artistic works such as novels, poems, plays and songs among others.
Mr Lubogo noted that the future of writing is changing because copyright is going to be owned by the machine rather than the individual after 55 years.
"The challenge for copyright law is that it deals with the individual 55 years after they are dead," he said
He added: " We have issues with the law because right now you can generate a book on ChatGBT, will that book be owned by an individual or AI? That is the question I paused that question in my book, 'The Future Lawyer’.”
Mr Adonia Katungisa, Director National Library of Uganda urged Ugandans to embrace the reading culture saying that it’s the only way to know what is happening.
