it's sort of non-controversial at the extreme end I think - where there is no human contribution, why should there be protection?

But it just begs the actual question of how much human contribution there needs to be:

- I wrote the prompt (not enough)

- I wrote many prompts and iteratively refined them using distinctly human skill (open question, but loosely seems still not enough, potentially in the EU but maybe in the US?)

- I made minor modifications post-generation (open question, probably enough)

- I made equal or more contribution to the final result (this better clearly have copyright protection or we are in real trouble)

> I made minor modifications post-generation (open question, probably enough)

Hmm I don't think that would be enough. I'd expect that would only make the modifications themselves copyrightable, but not the whole modified work including the AI parts.

Compare for example the case where the US copyright office ruled that, when assembling AI-generated images and human-written text into a comic book, only the human-made elements themselves (text, arrangement) get copyright protection, but not the images.

E.g. if you generate an AI photo and color grade it, i expect only the color grading would be protected (if that is even significant enough to be protectable), not the rest. And someone else could re-color-grade the same image without infringing your copyright.

I'd say that any use of an AI trained on people's creations without (real) consent and compensation should not be protected.