Trends in Technology
LEGAL PERSPECTIVES Navigating property laws & regulations
Legal Considerations with AI-Driven Design
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rtificial intelligence (AI) is becoming a powerful tool in construction – from design to estimating to scheduling and beyond. But with its benefits come legal risks.
SUSAN M. WHITE, ESQ.
As AI becomes more common in design workflows and digital modeling tools, many legal considerations are often overlooked. The legal landscape is evolving quickly to keep pace with its growing use across the industry. Companies must adapt as well, ensuring that their contracts and company policies adequately address questions of ownership, liability and data protection. With these challenges in mind, it’s critical to understand the key legal issues around AI-driven design – including ownership rights, liability concerns and data protection – and how to address them proactively.
Who owns it, anyways? The use of AI on the design side of construction raises several significant intellectual property (IP) questions.
Without clearly defined terms in welldrafted contracts at the outset, this can lead to lengthy – and costly – litigation. But who owns the rights to AI-generated designs? This question often involves competing interests among the design firm, the construction firm, AI developers and project owners. Under current U.S. law, AI-generated works are not eligible for copyright protection, as AI itself cannot hold a copyright. However, many advanced AI tools are proprietary, and their use is governed by agreements that often include restrictive licenses that limit reuse and distribution. What if there is significant human input following the original AI-generated design? If an AI-generated work is the result of significant human input and creativity, the human contributor(s) may be considered the copyright holder. However,
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