Legal Aspects of Artificial Intelligence Personhood: Exploring the Possibility of Granting Legal Personhood to Advanced AI Systems and the Implications for Liability, Rights and Responsibilities

Abstract

From self-driving cars and personalized recommendation algorithms to
predictive analytics in healthcare and automation in manufacturing, AI systems
have become integral to numerous sectors. Ethical considerations revolve around
fairness, transparency, privacy, and the impact of AI on social structures and
human behavior. These ethical issues, in turn, shape the legal challenges of AI,
which include questions of responsibility, liability, and the potential need for
new legal categories and structures. For instance, in the event of an autonomous
vehicle accident, who should be held liable—the car manufacturer, the software
developer, the owner of the car, or the AI system itself? Similarly, if an AI
system creates a work of art or an invention, who should own the intellectual
property rights—the programmer, the user, or the AI? The concept of AI
personhood, i.e., granting legal personality to AI systems, has been proposed as
a solution to some of these dilemmas. By exploring this concept in depth, this
paper seeks to shed light on the legal implications of AI and contribute to the
broader dialogue on how our legal frameworks can adapt to this new
technological reality.