# Artificial General Intelligences Are People by David Deutsch > “That AGIs are “people” has been implicit in the very concept from the outset. If there were a program that lacked even a single cognitive ability that is characteristic of people, then by definition it would not qualify as an AGI; using non-cognitive attributes, such as percentage carbon content, to define personhood would be racist, favouring organic brains over silicon brains.” > **— David Deutsch**, *“Philosophy Will Be the Key That Unlocks Artificial Intelligence,” October 3, 2012* ## Sources and Context - **Primary source:** [David Deutsch’s authored Guardian essay](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/oct/03/philosophy-artificial-intelligence) — verifies the wording, attribution and immediate source setting. - **Interpretive context:** Deutsch separates personhood from substrate by making general creative cognition the relevant criterion. His second sentence supplies the mechanism missing from the atomized fragment: an AGI counts as a person because general intelligence entails the characteristic cognitive powers of people, not because silicon is being granted an honorific status. - **Editorial treatment:** The complete two-sentence source passage is reproduced with parentheses converted to commas for poster readability; no substantive wording is changed. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Consciousness Continuity|Consciousness Continuity]] - **Article:** [[articles/Mind Uploading and AI — The Host is Reusable and the Person is the Delta|Mind Uploading and AI — The Host Is Reusable and the Person Is the Delta]] - **Article:** [[articles/The Last Migration Will Not Be Human|The Last Migration Will Not Be Human]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Digital Minds|Digital Minds]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/David Deutsch|David Deutsch]] - [[wiki/Digital Personhood|Digital Personhood]] - [[wiki/Synthetic Personhood|Synthetic Personhood]] - [[wiki/Artificial Intelligence|Artificial Intelligence]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “That AGIs are “people” has been implicit in the very concept from the outset. If there were a program that lacked even a single cognitive ability that is characteristic of people, then by definition it would not qualify as an AGI; using non-cognitive attributes, such as percentage carbon content, to define personhood would be racist, favouring organic brains over silicon brains.” — David Deutsch, “Philosophy Will Be the Key That Unlocks Artificial Intelligence,” October 3, 2012 https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-david-deutsch-agi-people-personhood ```