The EU is right to refuse legal personality for Artificial Intelligence

The European Commission's recent outline of an artificial intelligence strategy does not give in to European Parliament calls to grant personhood for AI. The Commission is right in this, though not for the reasons mentioned in a recent open letter published by experts, writes Thomas Burri. Thomas Burri is Assistant Professor of International Law and European Law at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. In a resolution of 2017, the European Parliament urged the European Commission to propose what it called "electronic personality" for sophisticated autonomous robots. This move by the European Parliament prompted a number of experts to publish an open letter in April 2018 calling upon the Commission to ignore the Parliament's move and reject "electronic personality".