{"paper":{"title":"Precautionary Governance of Autonomous AI: Legal Personhood as Functional Instrument","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","headline":"Limited legal personhood via a two-tier corporate structure closes responsibility gaps for autonomous AI.","cross_cats":["cs.AI"],"primary_cat":"cs.CY","authors_text":"Karsten Brensing","submitted_at":"2026-03-14T19:38:19Z","abstract_excerpt":"Autonomous AI systems generate responsibility gaps: consequential actions that cannot be satisfactorily attributed to developers, operators, or users under existing legal frameworks. The prevailing subject-object dichotomy fails to accommodate entities that exhibit autonomous, goal-directed behavior without recognized consciousness. Given irreducible epistemic uncertainty regarding artificial consciousness and the prospect of high-impact harms, the precautionary principle supports institutional design rather than regulatory inaction. This article advances limited legal personhood as a function"},"claims":{"count":4,"items":[{"kind":"strongest_claim","text":"This article advances limited legal personhood as a functional governance instrument for advanced AI systems. Drawing on organizational law, it proposes a two-tier corporate architecture in which AI systems operate through purpose-bound operating companies embedded within human-controlled holding structures, enabling transparency, accountability, and structural reversibility while remaining agnostic with respect to consciousness and moral status.","source":"verdict.strongest_claim","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C1","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"weakest_assumption","text":"That existing legal systems can readily accommodate the proposed two-tier corporate architecture for AI without creating new attribution gaps or requiring extensive doctrinal overhaul, and that the structure will meaningfully close responsibility gaps rather than merely relocating them.","source":"verdict.weakest_assumption","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C2","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"one_line_summary","text":"Limited legal personhood for AI, implemented via purpose-bound operating companies within human-controlled holding structures, serves as a precautionary governance instrument that enables transparency and accountability without resolving questions of artificial consciousness.","source":"verdict.one_line_summary","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C3","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"headline","text":"Limited legal personhood via a two-tier corporate structure closes responsibility gaps for autonomous AI.","source":"verdict.pith_extraction.headline","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C4","attestation":"unclaimed"}],"snapshot_sha256":"a3f47b40ab362be2bbbe1e0aaae25a690e8ccfb8d9faec0239e7451c0b240f82"},"source":{"id":"2605.12505","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":"d37c4767-7822-4917-a2e9-ebae58214578","model_set":{"reader":"grok-4.3"},"created_at":"2026-05-15T11:00:54.205689Z","strongest_claim":"This article advances limited legal personhood as a functional governance instrument for advanced AI systems. Drawing on organizational law, it proposes a two-tier corporate architecture in which AI systems operate through purpose-bound operating companies embedded within human-controlled holding structures, enabling transparency, accountability, and structural reversibility while remaining agnostic with respect to consciousness and moral status.","one_line_summary":"Limited legal personhood for AI, implemented via purpose-bound operating companies within human-controlled holding structures, serves as a precautionary governance instrument that enables transparency and accountability without resolving questions of artificial consciousness.","pipeline_version":"pith-pipeline@v0.9.0","weakest_assumption":"That existing legal systems can readily accommodate the proposed two-tier corporate architecture for AI without creating new attribution gaps or requiring extensive doctrinal overhaul, and that the structure will meaningfully close responsibility gaps rather than merely relocating them.","pith_extraction_headline":"Limited legal personhood via a two-tier corporate structure closes responsibility gaps for autonomous AI."},"references":{"count":76,"sample":[{"doi":"","year":2020,"title":"Abbott, R. 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