The accelerating deployment of large scale generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems—spanning transformer based language models, diffusion driven image renderers, and autonomous code synthesizers—has unsettled the traditional coordinates of intellectual property (IP) law. Global statutes and treaties allocate copyright, patent, and database rights to authors and inventors whom the law presumes to be natural persons, yet contemporary systems can now produce text, images, musical compositions, molecular structures, and circuit designs with minimal or no deterministic human input. This paper interrogates the normative, doctrinal, and practical ramifications of that mismatch and asks a foundational question: who, if anyone, should be recognized as the legal rights holder for AI-generated content.
