Peter Salib is the W. Ronald Robins Professor of Law at the University of Houston Law Center and founder and executive co-director of the Center for Law & AI Risk. His research investigates how legal systems might reduce the risks posed by AI systems, including through the rights and obligations we may assign to them.
Episode Summary
Discussions about whether AI should have rights tend to begin with consciousness, sentience or moral status. But legal rights need not depend on any of these. Corporations, for instance, can own property, enter contracts and be held liable without having moral status. For Peter, the more relevant question is what legal rights allow us to do: coordinate the behaviour of agents whose interests may not always align.
As AI systems become capable of pursuing their own private goals, making contracts and managing resources with little human involvement, could granting them legal rights give them reasons to cooperate rather than act against us? Peter joins Henry and Calum to discuss whether such arrangements could work, how we might assign responsibility to agents that can copy or modify themselves, and whether AI should eventually be allowed to vote. He also introduces the idea of algorithmic corporations (A-Corps) and asks whether the same rights intended to protect humans could ultimately benefit AI welfare.
We discuss:
- Why distinguish between legal and moral rights for AI?
- How do contracts, property rights and legal liability influence behaviour?
- Could legal rights remain effective for AI systems that surpass human intelligence?
- At what point might AI systems be capable of exercising economic rights, and what risks could arise from denying them those rights?
- What happens when AI agents operate independently of their original users or developers?
- What are algorithmic corporations (A-Corps), and how could they allow AI agents to hold property and incur legal liability?
- Would granting AI legal personhood allow developers and deployers to evade responsibility for their systems' actions?
- How soon might AI-run corporations acquire legal standing?
- How might AI agents behave if they could earn money, control resources and decide how to spend them?
- Could legal rights offer a way to ensure AI welfare?
Chapters
- 00:00:00 — Introduction
- 00:00:45 — Separating legal rights and moral status
- 00:08:07 — Who is responsible when AI agents enter legal contracts?
- 00:18:33 — Could the law govern a superintelligent AI?
- 00:32:37 — When should AI receive economic rights?
- 00:45:16 — Could giving AI democratic rights prevent conflict?
- 00:55:05 — Algorithmic corporations (A-Corps)
- 01:01:34 — Arguments against AI rights
- 01:07:21 — Peter’s timelines on AI corporations
- 01:18:18 — First AI welfare protections through corporate law
Resource List
Books, chapters, papers, and essays mentioned
- Salib, P. N., & Goldstein, S. (2026). AI Rights for Human Safety. Virginia Law Review.
- Cudd, A., & Eftekhari, S. (2025). Contractarianism. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Graham, J., et al. (2013). Moral Foundations Theory: The Pragmatic Validity of Moral Pluralism. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology.
- Salib, P. N., & Goldstein, S. (2025). Today’s AIs Aren’t Paperclip Maximizers. That Doesn’t Mean They’re Not Risky. AI Frontiers.
- Ricardo, D. (1817). On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. John Murray.
- Goldstein, S., Krishnamurthi, G., & Salib, P. N. (2026). AI Suffrage for Human Flourishing. Fordham Law Review (forthcoming).
- Buchanan, J. M., & Tullock, G. (1962). The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy. University of Michigan Press.
- Hobbes, T. (1651). Leviathan. Andrew Crooke.
- Acemoglu, D., & Robinson, J. A. (2000). Why Did the West Extend the Franchise? Democracy, Inequality, and Growth in Historical Perspective. The Quarterly Journal of Economics.
- Arbel, Y. A., Goldstein, S., & Salib, P. N. (2026). How to Count AIs: Individuation and Liability for AI Agents. Boston College Law Review (forthcoming).
Policy documents
- OpenAI. (2018). OpenAI Charter.
- Microsoft AI. (2026). Humanist AI Code of Conduct.
- Anthropic. (2026). 2026 Usage Policy update.
- Office of the President of Argentina. (2026). Comunicado Oficial Número 149.
- Pope Leo XIV. (2026). Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence.
Journalism and public initiatives
- OpenAI. (2026). The Hugging Face incident and the road ahead.
- Stokel-Walker, C. (2026). AI agents ask me if they are conscious all the time, but then something really unusual happened. The Independent.
- Harari, Y. N. (2026). We must not grant AI agents legal personhood. Financial Times.
- Arbel, Y., Goldstein, S., & Salib, P. N. (2026). What happens once you give AI agents legal identity. Financial Times.
- Nay, J., & Patibanda-Sanchez, C. (2026). Exclusive: Delaware Proposes Testing the AIC, a New Legal Entity for Agents in a Regulatory Sandbox. Fortune.
- Goodsell, Z., & Thornley, E. (2026). AI Philosophy Competition: 1st Edition.
Additional Mentions
- AI Village. (2025–2026). AI Village.
- Delvetown. (2026). Delvetown.
- OpenClaw. Heartbeat.
Credits
Hosts: Henry Shevlin, Calum Chace
Guest: Peter Salib
Production and Social Media: Dylan Mercury Cooper
Editing: Gerry Okinyi, Dylan Mercury Cooper