The Rise of Robot Inventors

Inventions becoming inventors… It might sound like sci-fi, but it's not really such a far-fetched idea. In fact, it's a prospect that's already becoming reality, given the recent news that an AI-created medicine for the treatment of OCD will be tested on humans for the first time. While the world's first patent applications for machine-designed inventions were rejected in January by the EPO, this development brings fresh attention to the AI-inventor debate. What may seem to many like simply an interesting experiment might well have far-reaching implications. Could this be the tipping point when technology goes from being a facilitator and an enhancer of human endeavour, to a developer of innovation in its own right?