AI in the Courtroom: Should Robots Have Legal Personhood?

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has moved from the peripheries of technology into the heart of legal systems, forcing jurists, legislators, and philosophers to confront a profound question: should robots and AI systems be granted legal personhood? From the European Union’s deliberations on “electronic persons” to U.S. courts penalizing lawyers for AI-generated fake citations, the courtroom has become the testing ground for this dilemma. Drawing on global case law, policy reports, and jurisprudential debates, this paper examines whether legal personhood for AI is a necessity, a fiction, or a dangerous illusion.

Introduction

Legal personhood has never been restricted to biological humans. Over centuries, courts and legislatures have expanded the concept to embrace corporations, trusts, deities, and even rivers entities with no consciousness but immense social relevance. As the Saudi government granting “citizenship” to Sophia the robot in 2017 illustrated, the symbolic recognition of AI as something more than property is no longer unthinkable. Yet, symbolism does not resolve the pressing legal questions: when an autonomous AI drafts fraudulent legal precedents, generates misleading courtroom avatars, or invents patentable technology, who is responsible?

According to the OECD 2024 AI Governance Report, accountability gaps are now one of the most urgent legal challenges of the digital age. Courts in the United States, Europe, and Asia are already facing this head-on. The answers, however, remain fragmented, inconsistent, and at times, contradictory.

The Collision of AI and Legal Doctrine

When lawyers in Mata v. Avianca (U.S. District Court, 2023) submitted six fabricated cases generated by ChatGPT, the judge imposed sanctions and reminded the profession that responsibility rests squarely on human advocates. Similarly, when a litigant in New York appeared via an undisclosed AI-generated avatar in 2025, the judge halted proceedings, citing a breach of candor to the court. These episodes underscore what the Stanford AI Index (2024) has quantified: nearly one-third of American law firms are now integrating AI into their practice, raising both efficiency and risk to unprecedented levels.

Patent law has been another battlefield. Stephen Thaler’s AI system, DABUS, was listed as the inventor in patent filings across multiple jurisdictions. The UK Supreme Court (2023), the U.S. Federal Circuit (2022), and most recently the Swiss Federal Administrative Court (2025) rejected the claim, holding that inventorship belongs only to “natural persons.” Yet, South Africa granted a patent naming DABUS, creating the first crack in the global consensus. The divergence reflects what PwC’s Global Innovation Report (2023) called “the juridical lag” law’s inability to move at the speed of technology.

Even criminal justice has not escaped disruption. In Arizona (2024), a homicide victim’s family used an AI avatar of the deceased to deliver a victim impact statement. The presiding judge allowed it and subsequently imposed the maximum sentence. Critics argued, as documented in the American Bar Association’s 2024 Ethics Review, that such practices risk manipulating juries with “manufactured grief.” Yet supporters insisted that technology merely gave voice to those silenced, a continuity with restorative justice principles.

Global Legal Responses

In the European Union, early drafts of the EU Parliament’s 2017 Robotics Report floated the radical idea of granting advanced AI “electronic personhood.” Though the proposal was later abandoned, the debate resurfaced during negotiations of the EU AI Act (2024), which ultimately opted for strict risk-based regulation rather than personhood. Across the Atlantic, U.S. law remains conservative: liability is framed through existing doctrines of negligence, strict liability, and professional misconduct, with no recognition of AI as a legal subject.

Contrast this with India, where the judiciary has a rich tradition of expanding personhood. The Madhya Pradesh High Court (2017) recognized the Narmada River as a legal person, and the Supreme Court in the Ayodhya Judgment (2019) affirmed deity personhood. If rivers and idols can litigate through guardians, could an AI system be next? The NITI Aayog National AI Strategy (2023) acknowledges the question but stops short of recommending personhood, preferring a model of “augmented human accountability.”

The Council of Europe’s Framework Convention on AI (2024) has set a middle path by requiring member states to align AI use with human rights, democracy, and rule of law without granting machines independent standing. Japan and South Korea have issued “robot ethics charters,” again emphasizing human responsibility over autonomous rights.

Arguments in Favor of AI Personhood

Proponents argue, as Joanna Bryson and colleagues note in their Springer study (2017), that legal personhood has always been a matter of legal utility, not metaphysical truth. Corporations do not think or feel, yet they are persons in law. AI systems with autonomous capacity could similarly be granted limited personhood to:

• Close liability gaps, ensuring victims of autonomous harm can claim compensation directly.
• Facilitate innovation, recognizing AI-generated inventions or works without legal gymnastics.
• Symbolically integrate AI, acknowledging its role in society and preventing “regulatory invisibility.”

Arguments Against AI Personhood

Critics counter with equal force. A 2025 study from the University of Cambridge warns that granting AI legal status risks creating “responsibility shields” for corporations—allowing humans to hide behind machines. Unlike corporations, which pool human actors, AI lacks assets, consciousness, and moral agency. Punishing an algorithm serves neither deterrence nor justice. Moreover, the UN Human Rights Council Report (2024) cautions that equating machines with humans risks eroding the special dignity underpinning human rights law

The Path Forward: Functional Personhood Without Human Equivalence

Given these tensions, most scholars advocate neither complete denial nor reckless extension of personhood. A pragmatic solution lies in functional personhood:

• AI systems could be recognized as “electronic agents” in limited contexts such as contracting, evidence, or intellectual property.
• Liability could be attached through mandatory insurance models, ensuring victims are compensated without absolving developers or users.
• Oversight could be modeled on the EU AI Act’s risk-based framework, combining auditability, transparency, and human-in-the-loop mandates.

Such an approach echoes the historical evolution of corporate personhood—gradual, functional, and tightly regulated—rather than sudden, all-encompassing recognition.

Conclusion

AI in the courtroom is no longer speculative; it is a lived reality. From fabricated precedents in U.S. litigation to AI-generated testimony in criminal cases, the legal order is already under strain. Reports from the OECD, ABA, and NITI Aayog converge on one point: without reform, accountability gaps will widen. Yet, granting robots full legal personhood risks diluting the very foundation of human rights.

The answer, therefore, is measured innovation: not human-equivalent personhood, but functional, context-specific recognition that secures accountability while preserving human primacy. Law must evolve, but not surrender. The courtroom may one day host autonomous agents, but justice must remain irrevocably human

https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1%3A2022cv01461/575368/54/

https://www.casemine.com/judgement/uk/658332d96923762388911e63?