Of, for, and by the people: the legal lacuna of synthetic persons

Abstract

Conferring legal personhood on purely synthetic entities is a very real legal possibility, one under consideration presently by the European Union. We show here that such legislative action would be morally unnecessary and legally troublesome. While AI legal personhood may have some emotional or economic appeal, so do many superficially desirable hazards against which the law protects us. We review the utility and history of legal fictions of personhood, discussing salient precedents where such fictions resulted in abuse or incoherence. We conclude that difficulties in holding ''electronic persons'' accountable when they violate the rights of others outweigh the highly precarious moral interests that AI legal personhood might protect.

Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Machines: Influences, Consequences, and Dilemmas in Human Care

“…It is necessary to emphasize the role of the robot owner in the creation of this electronic personality [44]. The robot does not suddenly gain obligations and rights that are similar to a humans', but rather the robot owner sets up a legal fiction, of which he is in control, much like a majority shareholder [45].…”

First Steps Towards an Ethics of Robots and Artificial Intelligence

“…The doctrine was eventually 16. For some recent discussions, Schwitzgebel and Garza (2015); Gunkel (2018); Bryson, Diamantis, and Grant, (2017);and Turner (2018).…”

“…Given the assumption that the attribution of legal personality to RAIs would not be grounded in their independent moral personhood, the question of whether RAIs should be designated legal persons falls to be determined by reference to the overall balance of benefits and burdens for human beings, and other morally considerable beings, of adopting this legal innovation (Bryson, Diamantis, and Grant, 2017).…”

“…Another arises where there is no relevant human agent 'standing behind' the actions of a RAI: how will the RAI compensate others for its breach of obligation? (Bryson, Diamantis, and Grant, 2017). Would the successful litigant be given ownership of the RAI, or might RAIs possess assets, e.g.…”

On the legal responsibility of autonomous machines

“…Ever since the famous experiments of Heider and Simmel (1944), it has been well known that we are able to spontaneously conceptualise the observed movement of even simple geometrical figures such as circles and rectangles as an intentional action. This tendency may be well rooted in our evolutionary past: it has been speculated that from birth humans have the ability to perceive things in two diametrically different ways, as governed either by causality or intentionality (Bloom 2004). However, such a ''default'' conceptualisation of some phenomena as intentional surely has its limits.…”