Do machines with artificial intelligence performing as caring companions have personhood and social rights?.

Abstract

More machines with Artificially Intelligence will likely appear in the market as caring companions to respond to the market demand in the near future. Therefore, this study aims to address the issue of whether machines with AI have basic rights, related to the existence of personhood, and social rights in interaction with human beings. Focusing on the necessary conditions of personhood, the origin of social rights, and the structure of social power in caring companionships, it claims that we still have barriers to identifying whether machines with AI have personhood and, therefore, basic rights. It is because some of the current necessary conditions of personhood, provided by personists like Dennett, are either too vague to identify or not as necessary as personists think they are. However, machines with AI performing as caring companions deserve social rights equally with human persons because they are socially situated, and power in caring companionships are multidimensional.