April 1 (Reuters) - Last year, Kris Kashtanova typed instructions for a graphic novel into a new artificial-intelligence program and touched off a high-stakes debate over who created the artwork: a human or an algorithm. "Zendaya leaving gates of Central Park," Kashtanova entered into Midjourney, an AI program similar to ChatGPT that produces dazzling illustrations from written prompts. From these inputs and hundreds more emerged "Zarya of the Dawn," an 18-page story about a character resembling the actress Zendaya who roams a deserted Manhattan hundreds of years in the future. The images in "Zarya," the office said, were "not the product of human authorship." Now, with the help of a high-powered legal team, the artist is testing the limits of the law once again.

I was open how it was made and put Midjourney on the cover page. It wasn't altered in any other way," Kashtova writes. I registered it as visual arts work. My certificate is in the mail and I got the number and a confirmation today that it was approved. My friend lawyer gave me this idea and I decided to make a precedent."