That same page confirms that the sweat-of-the-brow doctrine has been rejected both in the US and in the EU. From
Feist Pulications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991):
[44] In summary, the 1976 revisions to the Copyright Act leave no doubt that originality, not “sweat of the brow,” is the touchstone of copyright protection in directories and other fact-based works. Nor is there any doubt that the same was true under the 1909 Act. The 1976 revisions were a direct response to the Copyright Office's concern that many lower courts had misconstrued this basic principle, and Congress emphasized repeatedly that the purpose of the revisions was to clarify, not change, existing law. The revisions explain with painstaking clarity that copyright requires originality; that facts are never original; that the copyright in a compilation does not extend to the facts it contains; and that a compilation is copyrightable only to the extent that it features an original selection, coordination, or arrangement.
And originality means creativity:
[49] The question that remains is whether Rural selected, coordinated, or arranged these uncopyrightable facts in an original way. As mentioned, originality is not a stringent standard; it does not require that facts be presented in an innovative or surprising way. It is equally true, however, that the selection and arrangement of facts cannot be so mechanical or routine as to require no creativity whatsoever. The standard of originality is low, but it does exist. (...) As this Court has explained, the Constitution mandates some minimal degree of creativity (...).
NN weights are intellectual property, but they are not source code.
How are they intellectual property? What law protects them?
The GPL covers source code only. With the rise of NN, this could be an interesting issue, and personally I'd like to hear the position of the Free Software Foundation on that, but I don't think it's likely they'd ever view NN weights as "code", even if there is a degree of functional equivalence.
More often than not the FSF's position is at odds with copyright law, so I'm personally not particularly interested in what they might say about it.
The idea that because monkey pressed the shutter button, the photographer does not own the copyright, is perversely stupid and wrong.
What may be stupid is arguing that the monkey owns the copyright. That being the owner of the camera does not make you the photographer seems pretty obvious.
The final and the most important thing: copyright law has always been largely utilitarian both in theory and practice - of course, because it serves a purpose, like all laws. And let's be honest, it's not to protect "creativity" or "innovation" per se, but rather to protect the financial interests of creators. You have to create something that hasn't existed before, and you have to put some effort, resources and skill into it: this is your investment, and the law is meant to protect it.
Wrong. Sweat of the brow has been rejected a long time ago. Copyright really is about (a modicum of) creativity. And its purpose is to stimulate the production of creative works.
