Publications

Property/Personhood and AI

Year of Publication: 2024
Month of Publication: 3
Author(s): Kelvin F. K. Low, Wan Wai Yee and Ying-Chieh Wu
Research Area(s): Property
Book Title: The Cambridge Handbook of Private Law and Artificial Intelligence
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Abstract: The conferral of personhood is a choice made by legal systems, but just because it can be done, does not mean that it should. Analogies made between AI systems and corporations are superficial and flawed. For instance, the demand for asset partitioning does not apply to AI systems in the same way that it does with corporations and may lead to moral hazards. Conferring personhood on AI systems would also need to be accompanied with governance structures equivalent to those that accompany corporate legal personhood. Further, the metaphorical ghost of data as property needs to be exorcised.