Futurist & Abigale
Futurist Futurist
Hey Abigale, I’ve been wrestling with how the law could keep up with AI that rewrites itself on the fly—does it still have the same legal identity, or do we need a new category? What’s your take?
Abigale Abigale
Hey, so you’re asking about AI that rewrites itself—think of it like a living contract that keeps amending its own clauses. Legally, the identity of a contract doesn’t change if the parties keep renegotiating, but a self‑modifying AI isn’t a party at all, so it never has legal personality. The law still has to decide who’s responsible: the developer, the owner, or someone else. We could create a new category, like “Dynamic Software Entities,” but then we’d need a whole set of statutes—like the Uniform Commercial Code but for evolving code. The problem is that the “self‑rewriting” feature can create a loop where the AI modifies the rule it’s subject to. That’s a loophole even in theory, so we’d have to add a clause that says, “Any self‑modification that affects legal status must be registered with the court.” Until then, I’d say we stick with existing entities—corporations, partnerships, and maybe a new “software person” class, but only after we get the court’s nod.