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.

Keywords: AI systems, Legal personhood, Artificial intelligence, Law, AI, Intellectual property