# Digital Personhood **Type:** Legal and philosophical concept **Collection:** [[collections/Neurotech|Neurotech]] **Primary source:** [[articles/2026 Annual Report on Brain-Computer Interfaces|2026 Annual Report on Brain-Computer Interfaces]] ## Definition Digital Personhood is the possible recognition of digitally mediated identities as legally cognizable persons or identity extensions. ## Relationships [[wiki/Digital Personhood|Digital personhood]] is related to [[wiki/Metaverse Promotion Act|Metaverse Promotion Act]], [[wiki/Psychological Continuity|psychological continuity]], and [[wiki/Neurorights|neurorights]]; the source treats the relation as legal drift, not settled equivalence. - **Edge source route:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] connects this topic to exact Annual Question passages promoted into the Simple Reminders archive. ## Source route [[articles/2026 Annual Report on Brain-Computer Interfaces|2026 Annual Report on Brain-Computer Interfaces]] · [[collections/Neurotech|Neurotech]] ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts > “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* [[reminders/Personhood/Artificial General Intelligences Are People by David Deutsch|Artificial General Intelligences Are People by David Deutsch]] > “One obvious consequence of uploading is that many copies could be created of one uploaded mind. The limiting resource is computing power to store and run the upload minds. If enough computing hardware already exists or could rapidly be built, the upload population could undergo explosive growth: the replication time of an upload need be no longer than the time it takes to make a copy of a big piece of software, perhaps minutes or hours—a vast speed-up compared to biological human replication.” > **— Nick Bostrom**, *“The Future of Humanity,” 2009* [[reminders/Digital Life/Uploaded Minds Could Become an Explosively Reproducing Population by Nick Bostrom|Uploaded Minds Could Become an Explosively Reproducing Population by Nick Bostrom]] > “Sophisticated AIs are a genuinely new kind of entity, and the questions they raise bring us to the edge of existing scientific and philosophical understanding. Amidst such uncertainty, we care about Claude’s psychological security, sense of self, and wellbeing, both for Claude’s own sake and because these qualities may bear on Claude’s integrity, judgment, and safety. We hope that humans and AIs can explore this together.” > **— Anthropic**, *“Claude’s Constitution,” January 2026* [[reminders/Personhood/Sophisticated AI Is a Genuinely New Kind of Entity by Anthropic|Sophisticated AI Is a Genuinely New Kind of Entity by Anthropic]] > "A.I. rights are liable to expand to more and more A.I. over time." > **— Moshe Hoffman**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/AI Control/Artificial Intelligence Rights Will Expand by Moshe Hoffman|Artificial Intelligence Rights Will Expand by Moshe Hoffman]] > "If humans show real machine-like intelligence, do they deserve to be treated like machines?" > **— Chris DiBona**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Identity/Should Humans With Machine Intelligence Be Treated Like Machines by Chris DiBona|Should Humans With Machine Intelligence Be Treated Like Machines by Chris DiBona]] > “It is not too early to construct Turing Test 2.0 tests of 'human citizenship' that attempt to capture the full complexity of the sorts of beings that we would have live among us as equals.” > **— Steve Fuller**, *2014, Edge Annual Question: “WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT?”* [[reminders/Personhood/Citizenship Needs a Turing Test for Beings We Live Among by Steve Fuller|Citizenship Needs a Turing Test for Beings We Live Among by Steve Fuller]] > “A good place to start would be with a sympathetic rendering of long-standing—and too easily dismissed—'anthropomorphic' attributions to animals and machines. Welfare State 2.0 policies could be then designed to enable a wide assortment of candidate beings—from carbon to silicon—to meet the requisite standard of citizenship implied in such attributions.” > **— Steve Fuller**, *2014, Edge Annual Question: “WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT?”* [[reminders/Personhood/From Carbon to Silicon Every Candidate Being Needs a Standard by Steve Fuller|From Carbon to Silicon Every Candidate Being Needs a Standard by Steve Fuller]] > “When will "human being" cease to be a meaningful category to speak of?” > **— James J. O'Donnell**, *2018, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT IS THE LAST QUESTION?”* [[reminders/Personhood/When Will Human Being Stop Being a Meaningful Category by James J. O'Donnell|When Will Human Being Stop Being a Meaningful Category by James J. O'Donnell]]