Robots among us: Understanding AI Consciousness for AI Safety
Legal systems are very dependent on theories of mind, but the science of consciousness remains deeply unsettled. This project looks at the impact on our legal system of both digital minds and of the person-like qualities of artificial intelligence. The law’s internal coherence is strained when foundational categories (person, citizen) are reimagined, yet, an evolving legal status for digital minds may emerge as the most durable solution to alignment.
Neuro-Rights, Biocompute and Brain Organoids: Free Will and the Law
After Chile became the first country in 2021 to protect the right to brain integrity, this project explores whether the law is ready for the age of brain implants and wearable neurotechnology. This project looks at possible rights for biocompute and blended human-digital minds. These technologies promise major health benefits and more efficient AI, but they also risk altering personality, enabling external control over brain functions and blurring the line between machine and human. Although existing law provides strong protections for privacy that could serve as a foundation for brain-related rights, the law is not ready for technologies that directly challenge human agency, personhood and free will.
Citizenship on the Edge
This project examines how AI “persons” may impact state sovereignty, including their deployment in dangerous and inhospitable physical environments. AI and robots may be used to populate sunken countries under the ocean, or in space, where it may be too difficult and expensive to maintain a human population. This project looks at how AI “persons” may reshape concepts of statehood under international law, such as the Artemis Accords and Outer Space Treaty, the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, the Law of the Sea, and other frameworks. It imagines what reforms to citizenship law and human rights might be necessary to make possible emerging and reconstituted states inhabited by AI “persons”.
AI Agents, Citizenship and Migration
This project begins by assuming that AI agents, when combined with surveillance and biometrics, will reshape global citizenship, migration, and refugee law by replacing humans. It examines the effects of integrated AI agents on passport control, citizenship applications, refugee status determination, migration tracking, naturalization procedure, and civil registration, including their impact on access to citizenship and essential documents. It looks at the ways AI agents will interact with smart cards, centralized databases, drones and facial recognition technologies, and the impact these technologies will have on nation-state citizenship law and the international system of borders.
AI in Global Governance
International human rights norms and treaties are some of humanity’s greatest achievements, while the United Nations system continues to be indispensable to international peace and security during a period when the United States and China have emerged as the global AI superpowers. This project looks at how our global institutions will address the emerging question of AI “persons” and AI’s person-like qualities. Are our institutions up to the challenge of AI personhood? Can we guide AI persons to adopt our system of international norms? How will future AI fit into our legal systems? Will the process of integrating AI into global governance and participatory rights help produce AI that is aligned with human values? How might AI contribute to our collective understanding of global governance and universal norms?
Future of Citizenship is committed to promoting civil discourse on digital minds, AI consciousness, personhood and rights.