Artificial Intelligence (AI) increasingly inhabits the fabric of society, not only as a tool but as an autonomous agent influencing decisions, generating creative works, and interacting with humans in ways that challenge our traditional understanding of agency and responsibility. The debate over whether AI should be granted legal personality—essentially, whether it can be recognized as having rights and obligations under the law—has become a focal point for legal scholars, technologists, ethicists, and policymakers. Exploring this debate requires examining not just the technical capabilities of AI, but also the philosophical, social, and practical implications of treating AI as a legal subject.
Understanding Legal Personality
Legal personality is a foundational concept in jurisprudence. Traditionally, this status is reserved for natural persons (humans) and certain entities (such as corporations) that the law recognizes as having rights, duties, and capacities. Through this lens, granting legal personality to AI would mean that AI systems could, in theory, own property, enter contracts, be held liable for damages, or even sue and be sued in court.
Historically, the extension of legal personality has served practical purposes. Corporations, for instance, are treated as ‘legal persons’ to facilitate commerce, limit liability, and structure organizational accountability. The question is whether similar logic can or should apply to AI, given its unique attributes and the challenges it poses.
AI does not possess consciousness, intentionality, or a sense of moral agency—qualities often considered prerequisites for legal subjectivity.
The Case for AI Legal Personality
Proponents of granting legal personality to AI argue from several perspectives. One of the most prominent is the problem of responsibility gaps. As AI systems become more autonomous and make decisions independently of their human creators or operators, it becomes increasingly difficult to assign blame or responsibility when things go wrong. The European Parliament’s 2017 resolution on civil law rules on robotics even suggested considering the creation of a legal status for “electronic persons” for the most sophisticated autonomous agents.
Supporters argue that recognizing AI as a legal subject could:
- Facilitate the assignment of liability in complex cases where human fault is unclear or diffuse
- Encourage innovation by providing legal certainty and a clear framework for the deployment of autonomous systems
- Enable new forms of economic and social interaction, such as DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations), which operate without traditional human oversight
In some ways, proponents draw a parallel with the history of corporate law. Just as corporations are not ‘real’ people but are treated as such for the sake of legal and economic efficiency, so too could AI be recognized as a legal person for certain limited purposes.
Arguments Against Granting AI Legal Personality
Despite these arguments, there is substantial opposition to the notion of AI legal subjectivity. Critics emphasize several key concerns:
- Lack of Moral Agency: AI, regardless of sophistication, lacks consciousness, desires, and the ability to form intentions. To assign duties or rights to a system that cannot comprehend them is seen as a legal fiction with potentially dangerous consequences.
- Accountability Concerns: Granting legal personality to AI could enable human creators, owners, or operators to evade responsibility by shifting blame onto the system itself, much like how the corporate veil can sometimes shield real wrongdoers.
- Policy and Ethical Implications: Recognizing AI as a legal subject might dilute the concept of personhood and undermine the legal protections afforded to actual sentient beings.
Many legal scholars argue that the analogy between AI and corporations is fundamentally flawed. While corporations are made up of people and governed by boards, AI systems are not communities or organizations but artifacts—tools created and maintained by humans.
“To treat AI as a legal person is to create a scapegoat, not a solution,” notes legal theorist Frank Pasquale. “We risk absolving those with real agency from the consequences of their actions.”
Comparative Perspectives: Who Supports What, and Why?
Globally, the debate is shaped by regional legal traditions, political priorities, and cultural attitudes toward technology.
Europe
The most high-profile discussions have occurred in the European Union. The aforementioned European Parliament report sparked vigorous debate, with some policymakers supporting the idea as a means of regulating advanced AI, while many legal experts—including the European Commission’s own High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence—have cautioned against it. The prevailing view in Europe remains skeptical, emphasizing that existing legal frameworks can and should adapt to address AI-related harms without resorting to the fiction of AI personhood.
United States
In the U.S., the approach is more pragmatic and case-based. Courts and lawmakers have so far steered clear of recognizing AI as legal persons, preferring to treat AI as property or as a tool operated by individuals or organizations. The focus remains on clarifying liability for AI-caused harm and updating laws as necessary, rather than fundamentally altering the concept of legal personality.
Other Jurisdictions
In countries like Japan and South Korea, where robotics and AI are more deeply integrated into society, there is some openness to legal innovation. Yet even there, the conversation tends to revolve around regulatory sandboxes and special frameworks rather than full legal subjectivity for AI.
Philosophical Dimensions
Beneath the legal and practical arguments lies a deeper philosophical divide. The question of whether an artificial entity can or should be treated as a legal person touches on longstanding debates about the nature of personhood, agency, and rights.
Philosophers such as John Searle and Thomas Metzinger have argued that personhood entails certain cognitive and experiential capacities—not just the ability to process data or optimize outcomes, but to have experiences, values, or self-awareness. Most contemporary AI lacks these features, operating instead as complex pattern-matching systems.
On the other hand, some theorists speculate about the potential for future AI to develop forms of consciousness or moral agency. While this remains speculative, it does raise questions about how the law might need to evolve if such breakthroughs occur.
The law is not a static edifice but a living system, adapting to new realities as society changes.
Practical Implications and Future Directions
Regardless of where one stands on the issue of AI legal personality, the practical challenges are significant. Assigning rights or duties to AI systems would require new mechanisms for registration, oversight, and enforcement. It would also raise complex questions about the ownership of AI-generated works, the taxation of AI-controlled assets, and the regulation of AI-driven organizations.
Some experts advocate for a middle path: rather than granting full legal personality, they propose the creation of special legal categories for certain classes of AI systems. These might include mandatory insurance schemes, registries for high-risk AI, or new forms of joint liability for developers and operators.
Others suggest focusing on the human actors behind AI: ensuring that those who design, deploy, or profit from AI systems remain accountable for their behavior. In this view, the law should remain anthropocentric, using AI as a lens to refine our understanding of responsibility and agency rather than as a reason to dilute them.
Technological Evolution and the “Idea vs. Threat” Debate
At the heart of the matter is a tension between optimism and caution. For some, the prospect of AI as a legal subject is an exciting idea that could unlock new forms of creativity, collaboration, and economic organization. For others, it is a potential threat, one that could erode hard-won protections and blur essential distinctions between person and machine.
As AI systems become more sophisticated, the pressure to resolve these questions will only increase. Already, AI-driven organizations like DAOs are testing the limits of existing legal concepts, forcing courts and regulators to grapple with novel forms of agency and ownership. The choices made today will shape not only the future of law and technology, but also our collective understanding of what it means to be a subject under the law.
The journey toward a comprehensive legal framework for AI is not merely a technical challenge, but an ongoing dialogue between law, philosophy, and society.
Reimagining Agency and Responsibility
Ultimately, the question of AI’s legal personality is not just about technology—it is about how we, as a society, choose to structure agency, accountability, and trust in a world where machines increasingly act on our behalf and alongside us. Whether AI remains a powerful tool or evolves into a new kind of legal subject, the debate invites us to reflect deeply on the values and principles that underpin our legal systems.
In the end, the conversation is as much about ourselves as it is about machines: our hopes, our fears, and our vision for a future in which intelligence—whether natural or artificial—serves the common good.
