Artificial Intelligence as a Legal Subject? Philosophical Foundations and Practical Consequences of Granting Legal Personality to Machines
Keywords:
Artificial intelligence, legal personality, legal subjectivity, agency, responsibility, legal philosophy, algorithmic governance, comparative lawAbstract
The rapid integration of artificial intelligence into social, economic, and legal processes has fundamentally disrupted the traditional architecture of legal responsibility and subjectivity. Contemporary legal systems, grounded in a binary distinction between natural persons and juridical persons, increasingly struggle to regulate autonomous algorithmic systems whose decisions shape rights, obligations, and social outcomes. This article investigates whether artificial intelligence can be coherently conceptualized as a legal subject and examines the philosophical and institutional consequences of such recognition. Employing a descriptive narrative review methodology, the study synthesizes philosophical theories of personhood and agency, classical doctrines of legal personality, and emerging comparative legal approaches to AI regulation. The analysis demonstrates that legal personality has historically functioned as an adaptive construct shaped by evolving social realities rather than a fixed metaphysical category. While artificial intelligence does not satisfy traditional human-centered criteria of personhood such as consciousness and moral autonomy, it increasingly exhibits functional forms of agency, autonomy, and causal power that challenge the adequacy of existing legal classifications. The article further explores the systemic implications of AI legal subjectivity across civil law, criminal responsibility, governance, and public policy, highlighting both the potential benefits of enhanced accountability and risk management and the ethical dangers of diluting human dignity and redistributing responsibility. The findings suggest that the central challenge is not whether AI should become a legal person in an absolute sense, but how legal systems can construct a flexible framework of legal subjectivity capable of accommodating artificial agency while preserving the moral and political foundations of law. The study concludes that rethinking legal ontology is essential for maintaining coherence, legitimacy, and justice in the age of intelligent machines.
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