ABSTRACT
The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) and the prospect that AI may attain sentience has prompted some scholars to call for legal personhood and fundamental rights for AI. These calls have met with criticism by those who fear that granting rights or personhood to AI would blur the line between humans and AI and thereby erode the status and rights of human beings. Focusing on embodied forms of AI, specifically intelligent robots, I argue that, while such fears are justified, there is at least one important way in which they can be assuaged. The main threat to humans’ rights and status arises from the common approach in scholarship which grounds AI entitlements in their individual characteristics. Drawing on a similar solution I proposed for the same problem in the animal rights context, I argue that we should instead adopt a group-based approach. Specifically, I propose that if AI are to be conferred legal rights, legal personhood, or similar legal entitlements, this should occur based on what I call their ‘quasi species’.
Fasel, Raffael N, Robot Rights without Human Frights (August 1, 2025).
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