From Slaves to Synths? Superintelligence and the Evolution of Legal Personality
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arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2026
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| _version_ | 1866917186580250624 |
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| author | Chesterman, Simon |
| author_facet | Chesterman, Simon |
| contents | This essay examines the evolving concept of legal personality through the lens of recent developments in artificial intelligence and the possible emergence of superintelligence. Legal systems have long been open to extending personhood to non-human entities, most prominently corporations, for instrumental or inherent reasons. Instrumental rationales emphasize accountability and administrative efficiency, whereas inherent ones appeal to moral worth and autonomy. Neither is yet sufficient to justify conferring personhood on AI. Nevertheless, the acceleration of technological autonomy may lead us to reconsider how law conceptualizes agency and responsibility. Drawing on comparative jurisprudence, corporate theory, and the emerging literature on AI governance, the paper argues that existing frameworks can address short-term accountability gaps, but the eventual development of superintelligence may force a paradigmatic shift in our understanding of law itself. In such a speculative future, legal personality may depend less on the cognitive sophistication of machines than on humanity's ability to preserve our own moral and institutional sovereignty. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_02773 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | From Slaves to Synths? Superintelligence and the Evolution of Legal Personality Chesterman, Simon Computers and Society This essay examines the evolving concept of legal personality through the lens of recent developments in artificial intelligence and the possible emergence of superintelligence. Legal systems have long been open to extending personhood to non-human entities, most prominently corporations, for instrumental or inherent reasons. Instrumental rationales emphasize accountability and administrative efficiency, whereas inherent ones appeal to moral worth and autonomy. Neither is yet sufficient to justify conferring personhood on AI. Nevertheless, the acceleration of technological autonomy may lead us to reconsider how law conceptualizes agency and responsibility. Drawing on comparative jurisprudence, corporate theory, and the emerging literature on AI governance, the paper argues that existing frameworks can address short-term accountability gaps, but the eventual development of superintelligence may force a paradigmatic shift in our understanding of law itself. In such a speculative future, legal personality may depend less on the cognitive sophistication of machines than on humanity's ability to preserve our own moral and institutional sovereignty. |
| title | From Slaves to Synths? Superintelligence and the Evolution of Legal Personality |
| topic | Computers and Society |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.02773 |