Publication Date
Winter 2011
Volume
83
Document Type
Article
Abstract
This Article proposes a test to be used in answering an important question that has never received detailed jurisprudential analysis: What happens if a human artifact like a large computer system requests that it be treated as a person rather than as property? The Article argues that this entity should be granted a legal right to personhood if it has the following capacities: (1) an ability to interact with its environment and to engage in complex thought and communication; (2) a sense of being a self with a concern for achieving its plan for its life; and (3) the ability to live in a community with other persons based on, at least, mutual self-interest. In order to develop and defend this test of personhood, the Article sketches the nature and basis of the liberal theory of personhood, reviews the reasons to grant or deny autonomy to an entity that passes the test, and discusses, in terms of existing and potential technology, the categories of artifacts that might be granted the legal right of self-ownership under the test. Because of the speculative nature of the Article's topic, it closes with a discussion of the treatment of intelligent artifacts in science fiction.
Recommended Citation
F. Patrick Hubbard, "Do Androids Dream?": Personhood and Intelligent Artifacts, 83 Temp. L. Rev. 405 (2011)