Silicon minds: defining the criteria of legal personhood for AI

Abstract

AI has been a focus for academic debate among scholars even since before being invented. There is something fascinating about the idea of an artificial entity created by us being able to do the same things as humans, or even go beyond our capacity. This idea is also the root of fears about AI overtaking humans and ruling the world. Without debating whether these fears are founded or not, what is undeniable is that AI is shaping our society today, and will continue do so in the future, which means that we must find an appropriate way to fit it within our legal systems. Legal personhood is a possible configuration of the status that AI could have within our society. Mentioning the idea of granting personhood to AI is prone to incite rejection at first, after all, rights and obligations were conceived to protect humans, not computer programs. But personhood extends far beyond people and there are sensible reasons for that. If there is a way in which legal personhood can help humanity find the best fit for AI in its civilization, it should be considered as a possibility.