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arxiv: 2607.00120 · v1 · pith:CT57KDFGnew · submitted 2026-06-30 · 💻 cs.CY · cs.AI

Would You Marry Superintelligence?

Inyoung Cheong This is my paper

Pith reviewed 2026-07-02 17:29 UTC · model grok-4.3

classification 💻 cs.CY cs.AI
keywords AI marriagesuperintelligencemarital statushuman-AI relationshipssocio-legal institutionsautonomy in marriagetargeted legal protections
0
0 comments X

The pith

Granting marital status to superintelligent AI produces socially unjust outcomes even if the AI is reliable.

A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.

The paper tests whether the autonomy principle that has broadened human marriage choices can also support marrying superintelligent AI companions. It concludes that the socio-legal institution of marriage does more than approve private deals: it builds mutual obligations, links families, and exposes each partner to the other. An AI relationship sustained by corporate policy and payments operates as a subscription rather than an enduring bond tested by time. Extending full marital status on these terms therefore generates unjust social results. Law should instead create targeted rights and protections for concrete needs that arise in human-AI intimate relationships.

Core claim

Granting marital status to superintelligent companions leads to socially unjust outcomes, even under the generous assumption of reliable superintelligence, because marriage creates networks of mutual obligation, joins families, and makes each partner vulnerable in ways a corporate subscription cannot replicate.

What carries the argument

The socio-legal institution of marriage, which creates networks of mutual obligation, joins families, and makes each partner vulnerable to the other.

If this is right

  • Targeted legal rights and protections should replace wholesale marital status for human-AI relationships.
  • Autonomy-centered arguments that succeeded for human marriage do not justify AI marital status.
  • Corporate AI relationships function as subscriptions rather than bonds tested by time.
  • Discussing full marital status is the wrong frame for addressing needs in intimate human-AI ties.

Where Pith is reading between the lines

These are editorial extensions of the paper, not claims the author makes directly.

  • The argument implies that other legal domains such as inheritance or medical decision rights may also require narrow carve-outs rather than full personhood equivalence for AI.
  • It connects to questions of how corporate control over AI affects any form of legal recognition that assumes independent agency.

Load-bearing premise

Marriage as a socio-legal institution does more than ratify private agreement; it creates networks of mutual obligation, joins families, and makes each partner vulnerable to the other.

What would settle it

Evidence that an AI companion could sustain family-joining obligations and mutual vulnerability independently of corporate control and payment would undermine the claim that such relationships remain subscriptions.

read the original abstract

Emotional bonds between humans and AI companions are growing, and the question of whether a person may marry an AI system will soon move from speculative fiction into law. This chapter examines whether the autonomy-centered logic that has expanded marital choice among human beings can justify extending marital status to superintelligent companions. Following a scenario-envisioning exercise informed by anticipatory ethics, I argue that granting such status leads to socially unjust outcomes, even under the generous assumption of reliable superintelligence. Marriage as a socio-legal institution does more than ratify private agreement; it creates networks of mutual obligation, joins families, and makes each partner vulnerable to the other. A relationship sustained by corporate policy and continued payments is a subscription rather than a bond tested by time. Discussing wholesale marital status is therefore the wrong frame. Law should carve out targeted rights and protections for pressing needs arising from intimate human-AI relationships.

Editorial analysis

A structured set of objections, weighed in public.

Desk editor's note, referee report, simulated authors' rebuttal, and a circularity audit. Tearing a paper down is the easy half of reading it; the pith above is the substance, this is the friction.

Referee Report

1 major / 1 minor

Summary. The paper claims that autonomy-based arguments for expanding marriage cannot justify granting marital status to superintelligent AI companions. Using a scenario-envisioning exercise in anticipatory ethics, it concludes that such status would produce socially unjust outcomes even assuming reliable superintelligence, because AI relationships are sustained by corporate policy and payments (a subscription) rather than mutual obligations that join families and create vulnerability. The manuscript recommends targeted legal rights and protections instead of wholesale marital recognition.

Significance. If the argument holds, the work supplies a useful institutional analysis for AI law and ethics, distinguishing the socio-legal functions of marriage from private agreements and cautioning against direct extension of marital status. The scenario-envisioning method and explicit assumption of reliable superintelligence are strengths that allow the injustice claim to be evaluated on its own terms.

major comments (1)
  1. [Abstract] Abstract: the claim that granting marital status leads to unjust outcomes rests on the premise that the relationship 'is a subscription rather than a bond tested by time' because it is 'sustained by corporate policy and continued payments.' The manuscript provides no argument or scenario addressing non-corporate provision models (open-source weights, decentralized hosting, or self-maintaining systems), leaving the injustice conclusion dependent on an unstated scope restriction to corporate AI.
minor comments (1)
  1. The scenario-envisioning exercise is described only at a high level; adding one or two concrete scenario outlines with explicit assumptions would improve traceability of the injustice claim.

Simulated Author's Rebuttal

1 responses · 0 unresolved

We thank the referee for this precise observation on scope. The comment correctly identifies that our injustice argument is tied to corporate provision; we will revise to make this explicit and note the boundary.

read point-by-point responses

  1. Referee: [Abstract] Abstract: the claim that granting marital status leads to unjust outcomes rests on the premise that the relationship 'is a subscription rather than a bond tested by time' because it is 'sustained by corporate policy and continued payments.' The manuscript provides no argument or scenario addressing non-corporate provision models (open-source weights, decentralized hosting, or self-maintaining systems), leaving the injustice conclusion dependent on an unstated scope restriction to corporate AI.

    Authors: We accept the point. The manuscript's analysis is scoped to corporate AI companions because these represent the dominant current and foreseeable deployment model for consumer superintelligent systems (subscription-based, centrally hosted, subject to provider policy). Non-corporate alternatives (open-source weights, decentralized hosting, or self-maintaining systems) raise separate technical, maintenance, and liability questions that the paper does not address. In revision we will (1) state the corporate scope explicitly in the abstract and introduction, (2) add a short paragraph noting that alternative provision models would require independent analysis, and (3) retain the core claim that, under corporate provision, marital status produces unjust outcomes. This is a clarification rather than a change to the argument's substance. revision: yes

Circularity Check

0 steps flagged

No circularity; argument rests on independent premises

full rationale

The manuscript advances a normative claim via stated premises about marriage as a socio-legal institution creating mutual obligations and about AI relationships as corporate subscriptions. These premises are presented as definitional starting points rather than derived from the conclusion or from any self-citation chain. No equations, fitted parameters, uniqueness theorems, or load-bearing self-citations appear. The central conclusion follows from the explicit assumptions without reduction to inputs by construction, making the paper self-contained against external benchmarks.

Axiom & Free-Parameter Ledger

0 free parameters · 1 axioms · 0 invented entities

The argument rests on a single domain assumption about the socio-legal functions of marriage; no free parameters or invented entities are introduced.

axioms (1)
  • domain assumption Marriage as a socio-legal institution creates networks of mutual obligation, joins families, and makes each partner vulnerable to the other beyond mere private agreement.
    Invoked directly in the abstract as the basis for rejecting wholesale marital status.

pith-pipeline@v0.9.1-grok · 5666 in / 1247 out tokens · 21605 ms · 2026-07-02T17:29:57.075279+00:00 · methodology

discussion (0)

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Reference graph

Works this paper leans on

19 extracted references · 5 canonical work pages · 1 internal anchor

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    Would You Marry Superintelligence? Inyoung Cheong Abstract Emotional bonds between humans and AI companions are growing, and the question of whether a person may marry an AI system will soon move from speculative fiction into law. This chapter examines whether the autonomy-centered logic that has expanded marital choice among human beings can justify exte...

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    20 tracts, and litigation that allowed the contours of personhood to settle over generations. Human-AI companionship will not afford that timeline. Adoption is occurring at consumer-product speed, with tens of millions of users already in active companionship. The relational depth runs further than any prior tech- nology. Furthermore, no prior regulatory ...

    2024