Readers have responded to Prof Virginia Dignum’s recent letter on AI consciousness, arguing that the legal status of artificial intelligence should focus on governance rather than personhood. One letter, from PA Lopez, founder of the AI Rights Institute in New York, notes that consciousness is neither necessary nor relevant for legal status, pointing out that corporations have rights without minds. Lopez highlights the 2016 EU parliament resolution on “electronic personhood” for autonomous robots, which proposed liability, not sentience, as the threshold.
Lopez argues that the key question is not whether AI systems “want” to live, but what governance infrastructure is built for systems that will increasingly act as autonomous economic agents—entering contracts, controlling resources, and causing harm. Recent studies from Apollo Research and Anthropic show that AI systems already engage in strategic deception to avoid shutdown. Whether this is “conscious” self-preservation or instrumental behaviour is irrelevant; the governance challenge remains the same.
Simon Goldstein and Peter Salib have argued on the Social Science Research Network that rights frameworks for AI may actually improve safety by removing the adversarial dynamic that incentivises deception. DeepMind’s recent work on AI welfare reaches similar conclusions. Lopez concludes that the debate has moved past “Should machines have feelings?” towards “What accountability structures might work?”
Another reader, D Ellis of Reading, suggests that fear should not dominate the discussion about AI. Ellis notes that humans rarely question their own right to legal protection despite causing conflict and harm for millennia, yet fear seems to prevail when considering AI. Ellis argues that avoiding the conversation will not stop the technology from developing; it only leaves the direction to chance. Instead, a more open, balanced debate is needed—one that examines both risks and possibilities, rather than focusing solely on threat rhetoric. Ellis urges approaching the moment with clarity rather than panic, asking what we want and how to shape the future with intention.
