Question

The rapid advancement of generative artificial intelligence has catalyzed a profound schism within intellectual property jurisprudence, particularly concerning the locus of authorship. At the center of this contentious debate is the traditional requirement of "human authorship," a foundational doctrine that has long been treated as immutable in copyright law across most international jurisdictions. Legal philosopher Evelyn Thorne has emerged as the most vociferous defender of this traditional standard in contemporary scholarship. According to Thorne, copyright is not merely a utilitarian economic instrument but a profound moral recognition of the human condition. She contends that the authentic act of creation is intrinsically linked to lived human experience, intentionality, and the unique human capacity for suffering, triumph, and joy. From Thorne’s perspective, an artificial intelligence, completely devoid of consciousness and phenomenological experience, merely recombines existing data through complex but ultimately sterile stochastic processes. Therefore, granting copyright protection to AI-generated outputs would fundamentally degrade the concept of art and sever the vital, expressive connection between a creator and their work. To Thorne, the "spark of creativity" is an exclusively human phenomenon, and the legal system must fiercely guard the conceptual boundaries of authorship against relentless algorithmic encroachment.

Conversely, legal theorist Marcus Vance advocates for a strictly "output-centric" paradigm, dismissing Thorne’s focus on the creator’s internal psychological state as a romanticized anachronism unsuited for the digital age. Vance argues that the primary constitutional and societal purpose of copyright law is to "promote the progress of science and useful arts." This objective, he asserts, is best achieved by incentivizing the production and widespread dissemination of valuable works, entirely regardless of their ontological origin. He posits that if a novel or a symphony generated by an autonomous algorithm provides the exact same social, educational, and aesthetic utility as a comparable work created by a human author, the legal system should afford it similar practical protections. Consequently, Vance proposes a modified legal framework in which the developers or direct users of creative AI systems are granted a limited, sui generis intellectual property right over the AI's generated outputs. This specialized protection, he argues, would provide the necessary economic incentive for technology firms to continue investing capital into the development of increasingly sophisticated generative models.

Thorne vehemently rejects Vance's utilitarian approach, arguing that it dangerously conflates the superficial social utility of a commercial product with the deeper ontological nature of true art. She warns that adopting Vance's proposed model would inevitably lead to a cultural marketplace flooded with algorithmically optimized, emotionally hollow content, effectively crowding out authentic human creators who desperately require robust copyright protection to sustain their professional livelihoods. While Vance acknowledges this potential socio-economic risk, he maintains that the free market, rather than a centralized copyright office acting as a gatekeeper of authenticity, should dictate the ultimate value of a creative work. He concludes that erecting artificial barriers to entry by denying AI developers intellectual property rights will ultimately stifle the very technological and artistic innovation that copyright law was originally designed to foster.

Based on the passage, Marcus Vance would be most likely to agree with which one of the following statements regarding a highly advanced computer program that autonomously generates novel and highly efficient architectural blueprints?