Safeguarding IPRs for AI-based Emotion-Centric Systems

Abstract

Artificial intelligence based on emotion, i.e., AI developed to recognize, imitate, and react to human emotion, is essentially redefining the boundaries of creative digital processes and consumer interaction. Such systems produce affective results in the form of empathetic conversation, mood-driven stories, and emotional intelligent reactions which literally challenge the premise underlying the traditional Intellectual Property Right (IPR) regimes. The current copyright and proprietary laws, which are founded on ideas of human authorship and material objects, have a problem in categorizing or protecting these synthetic emotional manifestations. This paper, therefore, is a critical assessment of the legal and ethical blankness that exists in emotion-centred AI in a cross-jurisdictional perspective where regulatory frameworks in India, the United States, and the European Union are reviewed. Through the doctrinal jurisprudence, comparative legal reasoning, expert and philosophical inquiry, the study reveals the ineffectiveness of the existing IPR systems in safeguarding emotional data, synthetic empathy, and biometric derived affective content. The article suggests an alternative paradigm of IPR, a framework that incorporates emotional intelligence, affective privacy, neuro-rights, and symbolic authorship. This model not only deals with the legal status of AI outputs that may express emotions, but also with affirmed user autonomy, emotional dignity, and moral conscience in the human-machine relationship. The paper is advancing a rights-based approach to synthetic affect, thus contributing to the current development of the discourse of IPR in the age of emotionally intelligent machines.