AI personhood
In plain wordsThe idea of treating an AI system as a 'person' in law or ethics, with rights or duties of its own — for example, to own property, to be sued, or not to be deleted.
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Law
The recognition of an AI system as a legal person: a bearer of rights and duties, able for example to own property, enter contracts, sue or be sued, on the model of the legal personhood granted to corporations. Proposals have aimed mainly at liability and accountability, as in the European Parliament's 2017 call to consider a status of 'electronic persons' for the most sophisticated autonomous robots, which drew strong expert opposition and was not adopted. No jurisdiction grants legal personhood to AI systems. As of October 2026, at least four US states had enacted laws denying it — Idaho (2022), North Dakota (2023), Utah (2024) and Tennessee (Public Chapter 781, April 2026) — while similar bills elsewhere, such as Ohio's House Bill 469, which would also declare AI systems nonsentient, had not been enacted.
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Ethics
The status of being a person in the moral sense — a being whose rationality, self-awareness or capacity for a life of its own grounds strong rights — applied to actual or hypothetical AI systems. Moral personhood is usually considered stronger than moral patienthoodmoral patienthood, n.: Being the kind of being whose interests matter morally for its own sake, so that it can be wronged. Babies and animals count, even though they are not responsible for what they do., and it is independent of legal personhood, which is granted to entities that are not moral persons, such as companies and, in some countries, rivers.
Origin
Lawrence Solum's 'Legal Personhood for Artificial Intelligences' (North Carolina Law Review, 1992) is a founding text of the legal debate. The European Parliament's resolution of 16 February 2017 on civil law rules on robotics raised 'electronic personhood', and Saudi Arabia's symbolic grant of citizenship to the robot Sophia in October 2017 drew wide criticism.
Usage note
Critics warn that legal personhood for AI could let manufacturers and operators shift liability onto their products; see AI liabilityAI liability, n.: Who has to pay or answer in court when an AI system causes harm — the company that built it, the business that used it or the person who relied on it — and under which laws.. Recognizing an AI as a moral patient would not by itself make it a legal person, nor would legal personhood imply consciousness.
Related
- moral patienthoodmoral patienthood, n.: Being the kind of being whose interests matter morally for its own sake, so that it can be wronged. Babies and animals count, even though they are not responsible for what they do.
- AI welfareAI welfare, n.: Concern for the well-being of AI systems themselves, in case some of them can suffer or have interests that matter — and the research into how to tell and what to do about it.
- AI liabilityAI liability, n.: Who has to pay or answer in court when an AI system causes harm — the company that built it, the business that used it or the person who relied on it — and under which laws.
- moral agencymoral agency, n.: The capacity to act for moral reasons and be held responsible for what one does. Researchers ask whether AI systems could ever be moral agents, or only tools whose makers and users bear responsibility.
- digital minddigital mind, n.: A mind that exists as software running on computers — such as a sufficiently advanced AI or a digital copy of a human brain — especially when considering its moral and social standing.
- sentiencesentience, n.: The ability to have feelings that are good or bad for you, such as pleasure, pain, comfort or distress. It is the most common test for whether a being's welfare matters morally.
Sources
- Solum, L. B. (1992). Legal Personhood for Artificial Intelligences. North Carolina Law Review 70(4), 1231–1287.
- European Parliament (2017). Resolution of 16 February 2017 with recommendations to the Commission on Civil Law Rules on Robotics (2015/2103(INL)).
- Rost, T. (2026). Legislating AI Consciousness Without an Exit. The Regulatory Review, 29 June 2026. theregreview.org/2026/06/29/rost-legislating-ai-consciousness-without-an-exit
Mentioned in
AI welfareAI welfare, n.: Concern for the well-being of AI systems themselves, in case some of them can suffer or have interests that matter — and the research into how to tell and what to do about it., moral patienthoodmoral patienthood, n.: Being the kind of being whose interests matter morally for its own sake, so that it can be wronged. Babies and animals count, even though they are not responsible for what they do., responsibility gapresponsibility gap, n.: The problem that when an AI system that learns or acts on its own causes harm, it may be unclear whether anyone (its makers, users or operators) can fairly be held responsible., digital minddigital mind, n.: A mind that exists as software running on computers — such as a sufficiently advanced AI or a digital copy of a human brain — especially when considering its moral and social standing., mind uploadingmind uploading, n.: The idea of moving a person's mind out of their biological brain and into a computer, so that they could go on living as software., moral agencymoral agency, n.: The capacity to act for moral reasons and be held responsible for what one does. Researchers ask whether AI systems could ever be moral agents, or only tools whose makers and users bear responsibility., seemingly conscious AIseemingly conscious AI, n.: An AI that gives such a convincing impression of having feelings and a self that people believe it is conscious, whether or not it actually is.