Legal Person- or Agenthood of Artificial Intelligence Technologies

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) is developing rapidly. There are technologies available that fulfil several tasks better than humans can and even behave like humans to some extent. thus, the situation prompts the question whether Ai should be granted legal personand/or agenthood? there have been similar situations in history where the legal status of slaves or indigenous peoples was discussed. still, in those historical questions, the subjects under study were always natural persons, i.e., they were living beings belonging to the species Homo sapiens. We analyse the situation 1 The contribution of Peeter Müürsepp to the article was supported by Estonian Research Council grant no. PRG462. 2 Ondrej Hamuľák’s work on this article was supported by Jean Monnet Network Project 611293-EPP-1-2019-1-CZ-EPPJMO-NETWORK ‘European Union and the Challenges of Modern Society’. 3 Hovsep Kocharyan participated in the work on this article on behalf of the Project of specific research no. IGA_PF_2020_003 ‘Fostering the Right to be Forgotten as the Elementary E-right: Analyses of the Judicial Approach, Contemporary Developments and Challenges’.