When AI designs a drug, who gets the credit?
When AI designs a drug, who gets the credit?
当人工智能设计出药物时，谁该获得功劳？
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY When the biotech company Insilico Medicine used its computer models to propose a promising drug for pulmonary fibrosis, it enthusiastically claimed in a press release that the molecule had been “discovered by” its generative AI platform. Insilico leads a pack of companies using AI to rapidly come up with drug ideas humans might never think of, potentially speeding the race to new cures. AI models are now able to generate atomic designs for drugs almost as easily as ChatGPT can write a thank-you note.
执行摘要 当生物技术公司英矽智能（Insilico Medicine）利用其计算机模型提出一种治疗肺纤维化的潜力药物时，它在新闻稿中热情地宣称，该分子是由其生成式人工智能平台“发现的”。英矽智能引领着一批利用人工智能快速构思人类可能永远无法想到的药物创意的公司，这有望加速寻找新疗法的进程。如今，人工智能模型生成药物原子设计的能力，几乎就像 ChatGPT 写一封感谢信一样简单。
However, when it came time to file for an all-important patent to protect that new chemical structure, the company made no mention of AI. Instead the patent names five humans, including CEO Alex Zhavoronkov, as the drug’s “inventors.” The discrepancy points to a fascinating wrinkle in intellectual-property law. No matter how fundamental an AI is to a discovery, when it comes to winning rights to an invention, it’s humans—and only humans—who can take the credit.
然而，当需要申请至关重要的专利来保护这种新化学结构时，该公司却只字未提人工智能。相反，该专利将包括首席执行官亚历克斯·扎沃隆科夫（Alex Zhavoronkov）在内的五名人类列为该药物的“发明人”。这种差异揭示了知识产权法中一个引人入胜的棘手问题：无论人工智能在发现过程中发挥了多么基础的作用，在争取发明权时，只有人类——且仅有人类——才能获得功劳。
US courts reached that conclusion after Ryan Abbott, a partner at the LA law firm Brown, Neri, Smith & Khan, brought a pro bono test case naming an AI called DABUS as an inventor of a better food container, whose intricate geometric surface lets it transfer heat well and stack easily. Because no human contributed to the design, Abbott argued that the AI should be named the inventor. The case might have raised philosophical questions, like whether AIs deserve legal rights or what the true nature is of that eureka moment that leads to a better mousetrap.
美国法院在瑞安·阿博特（Ryan Abbott）提起诉讼后得出了这一结论。阿博特是洛杉矶律师事务所 Brown, Neri, Smith & Khan 的合伙人，他曾代理过一起公益测试案件，将一个名为 DABUS 的人工智能列为一种改进型食品容器的发明人，该容器复杂的几何表面使其具有良好的导热性和易堆叠性。由于没有人参与该设计，阿博特主张应将该人工智能列为发明人。此案引发了一些哲学层面的思考，例如人工智能是否应享有法律权利，或者导致发明创造的“灵光一现”时刻的本质究竟是什么。
But in 2022, an appeals court in Washington, DC, said these “metaphysical matters” were beside the point. Instead, it noted that US statutes describe an inventor as an “individual,” the plain meaning of which is a human being. Since machines aren’t people, they can’t be inventors. Case closed.
但在 2022 年，华盛顿特区的一家上诉法院表示，这些“形而上学的问题”无关紧要。法院指出，美国法规将发明人描述为“个人”（individual），其字面意思就是人类。既然机器不是人，它们就不能成为发明人。案件就此了结。
“There needs to be a human inventor or there’s no invention and no patent,” says Sarah Korman, a patent attorney who is now chief business officer and legal officer of Isomorphic Labs, an Alphabet spinout with big ambitions for AI cures. Korman, who made her remarks at MIT Technology Review’s EmTech event last year, added that there is “no doubt” our laws will need to evolve to keep pace with AI.
“必须有个人类发明人，否则就没有发明，也就没有专利，”专利律师莎拉·科曼（Sarah Korman）说道。她目前是 Isomorphic Labs 的首席商务官兼法律官，这家公司是 Alphabet 的衍生企业，在人工智能药物研发方面雄心勃勃。科曼在去年《麻省理工科技评论》的 EmTech 大会上发表了上述言论，并补充说，我们的法律“毫无疑问”需要不断演进，以跟上人工智能的发展步伐。
That’s partly because no one is denying that AIs can invent things. In the future, they may do so with less and less human intervention. As the US Patent and Trademark Office has itself acknowledged, “an AI system—like other tools—may perform acts that, if performed by a human, could constitute inventorship under our laws.” Instead, the key question going forward may actually be whether or not any human contributed enough to be named as an inventor.
这在一定程度上是因为没有人否认人工智能可以进行发明创造。未来，它们可能会在越来越少的人类干预下完成这些工作。正如美国专利商标局所承认的那样，“人工智能系统——像其他工具一样——可以执行某些行为，如果这些行为由人类执行，则可能构成我们法律下的发明行为。”因此，未来关键的问题可能实际上在于，是否有人类做出了足够的贡献而被列为发明人。
Abbott believes there could be legal challenges to AI-generated drugs, since one way to invalidate a patent is to show it has the wrong inventors listed. Abbott’s worry is that if US policy excludes AI-generated outputs from protection, that could put a damper on future drug development. Already, the US Copyright Office is refusing to grant copyrights to images and text generated by AI, raising concerns from organizations like the Motion Picture Association of America, whose members are using those tools.
阿博特认为，人工智能生成的药物可能会面临法律挑战，因为使专利无效的一种方法就是证明其列出的发明人有误。阿博特的担忧是，如果美国政策将人工智能生成的成果排除在保护范围之外，可能会抑制未来的药物开发。目前，美国版权局已经拒绝为人工智能生成的图像和文本授予版权，这引起了美国电影协会等组织的担忧，其成员正在使用这些工具。
The point of our intellectual-property laws is to encourage innovation, Abbott says. It’s right there in Article 1 of the US Constitution, which says inventors and authors need to be given exclusive rights to their ideas, for a limited time, in order “to promote the Progress of Science and the Useful Arts.”
阿博特说，我们知识产权法的目的在于鼓励创新。这一点在《美国宪法》第一条中就有明确规定，即为了“促进科学和实用艺术的进步”，必须在有限的时间内给予发明人和作者对其思想的专有权。
Currently, the US patent office seems to be taking a don’t-ask-don’t-tell approach to the use of AI. Under the Biden administration, the agency published guidance to help applicants determine whether and when humans would truly qualify as co-inventors of an AI discovery. But after Trump arrived in office, it reversed course. Now the patent office says AI is merely a tool, like a calculator. No need to even mention it.
目前，美国专利局在人工智能的使用问题上似乎采取了“不问不说”的态度。在拜登政府时期，该机构发布了指导方针，帮助申请人确定人类在何时真正有资格成为人工智能发现的共同发明人。但在特朗普上任后，该政策发生了逆转。现在，专利局认为人工智能仅仅是一种工具，就像计算器一样，甚至无需提及。
You can bet that pioneering AI drug companies are keeping humans in the loop, at least for now, and documenting everything carefully. At Insilico, Zhavoronkov says, human chemists still have to synthesize the drugs, create variants, and test them on animals. “That’s the person who is going to be named on the patent,” he says. “And even if you decided to completely roboticize this process, including the experiments, someone will still push the button and give the budget.”
可以肯定的是，那些开创性的人工智能制药公司至少目前仍将人类保留在流程中，并仔细记录一切。英矽智能的扎沃隆科夫表示，人类化学家仍然必须合成药物、制造变体并在动物身上进行测试。“这就是将被列在专利上的人，”他说，“即使你决定将这个过程完全机器人化，包括实验部分，也仍然会有人按下按钮并提供预算。”
Should pushing a button count as being an inventor? Abbott says that’s a question for future legal cases. “What if I asked Claude to cure cancer, and it did?” he says. “I think it would be inappropriate to claim that I invented that.”
按下按钮算不算发明人？阿博特认为这是未来法律案件需要解决的问题。“如果我要求 Claude 治愈癌症，而它真的做到了呢？”他说，“我认为声称是我发明了这种疗法是不合适的。”