The Fuzzy Middle of Copyright

I think we're talking about copyright here, not necessarily patents. There's so many patent trolls. They intermix. Copyright is more on actual textual works of art,. Whereas patents are ideas and processes, I think, are methods. And to that note, does AI fall into that same umbrella? It's no longer defensible that you need to be able to say this was a clean room implementation. Everyone that worked on it had no knowledge or insight or experience with how this competitive thing was built.