Legal Personality for AI

Abstract

Turner explains that giving AI legal personality does not mean treating it as a human. Legal personality refers to a bundle of rights and obligations. Like rights, legal personality is a fiction: a tool to further the aims of a given society. Turner suggests that legal personality for AI could be justified as an elegant solution to (i) pragmatic concerns arising from the difficulties of assigning responsibility for AI (see Chapter 3) and/or (ii) in order to support AI’s moral rights, if any (see Chapter 4). If legal personality for AI is adopted as a solution, helpful features of such a regime would include the ability for AI to holds rights, obligations, and assets, and for there to be a means of verifiable identification or registration.