Do We Need New Legal Personhood in the Age of Robots and AI?

Robert Hoven van Genderen ()
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Robert Hoven van Genderen: Center for Law and Internet, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

A chapter in Robotics, AI and the Future of Law, 2018, pp 15-55 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Do we need to give robotsRobot(s) and AIArtificial Intelligence (AI) entities a kind of legal personhoodLegal personhood in a robotized society where activities with legal effect are increasingly performed by AIArtificial Intelligence (AI) systems and autonomous robotsRobot(s) ? In this chapter, this question is considered by comparing the requirements of existing legal subjects, natural persons and (artificial) legal persons such as corporations and states. The relevance of free will, intelligence and consciousness of natural persons to acquire legal personhoodLegal personhood are analysed and compared with other beings, animalsAnimal(s) and future AIArtificial Intelligence (AI) entities. To give legal personhoodLegal personhood to AIArtificial Intelligence (AI) is also influenced by the human conviction that this would increase the risk to lose control and a “robot uprising.” Man, as always is afraid of technology getting out of hand and is convinced of their own superiority and therefore always wants to stay in control. In that context, the need for a certain legal personhoodLegal personhood in a future legal framework, considering civil liabilityCivil liability and even criminal liabilityLiability is discussed as it is also subjected to considerations by the European Parliament, eventually leading to proposals in European lawLaw .

Keywords: Artificial intelligence; Big Data; Ethics; Human control; Privacy; GDPR; Legal personhood; Subject; Disruptive technologies; Liability; Singularity; Robot law (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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DOI: 10.1007/978-981-13-2874-9_2

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