Excellent point regarding the famous Monkey selfie, which I think points to the emerging issue of biological vs artificial agents. It presents a sort of mirror

Excellent point regarding the famous Monkey selfie, which I think points to the emerging issue of biological vs artificial agents. It presents a sort of mirrored view of the GenAI issue: The human photographer does not get credit because the monkey is deemed to be the "agent of intent" rather than him, presumably because it's a living thing. If a photograph was triggered instead by a human tossing a rock onto the shutter, no one would claim that the rock now holds the copyright! Interesting thought experiment to replace the monkey with other "organic agents" and some method for them to trigger a photo: A squirrel? A lizard? A cockroach? A slime mold? At what point is the organism so "simple" that you say it was just part of the system/mechanism? Then on the artificial side, to replace the monkey with different mechanisms (as was your point): A photocopier seems quite different to a GenAI model. At what point does the human who set up the situation stop being the "agent"? Relevant concept of the Intentional Stance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentional_stance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentional_stance EDIT: Or at the far end of the spectrum, what about "art" that is made from DNA activity?! Does the copyright belong to the DNA? https://www.labiotech.eu/trends-news/gene-craft-laurie-ramsell-gina-czarnecki/ https://www.labiotech.eu/trends-news/gene-craft-laurie-ramse...