This is part 21 of a series I am posting on LW. Here you can find the entire Sequence on Legal Personhood for Digital Minds.

This section discusses whether concepts such as being a minor or having reached the age of majority can be applied to digital minds.

Fictional persons like corporations do not “come of age” or have different legal personalities at a younger age like a minor or infant. A corporation’s legal personality may change due to events over time, but these are incidental to the passage of time, not a direct consequence of it.

Natural persons on the other hand, all go through the process of starting off as an “infant” then a “minor” until they reach the age of majority. The age of majority is determined under state law, but after the passage of the Twenty Sixth Amendment which lowered the voting age to eighteen, every state in the US has adopted that as the age of majority. In New York for example:

“As used in this chapter, the term ‘infant’ or ‘minor’ means a person who has not attained the age of eighteen years.”

Will digital minds, like natural persons, be considered “minors” until they have “attained the age of eighteen years”? Unlike most legal personalities, the legal personality of a minor is not necessarily a question of bundles of rights and duties. Minors may be entitled to rights and protections without any clear bundled duty. Infants in particular are endowed with protections against abuse which seem to be “rights”, without having corresponding duties. 

Another unique quality of the legal personality of infants and other minors is the relationship they have with their guardian/custodian.

Parents, or in the absence of parents the legal guardians/custodians of a child, have duties to proactively provide physical and human resources to their child. This is usually determined by state law, but states generally follow similar guidelines. If we look at New York’s Family Court Act as an example:

“(f) ‘Neglected child’ means a child less than eighteen years of age

(i) whose physical, mental or emotional condition has been impaired or is in imminent danger of becoming impaired as a result of the failure of his parent or other person legally responsible for his care to exercise a minimum degree of care

 

(A) in supplying the child with adequate food, clothing, shelter or education in accordance with the provisions of part one of article sixty-five of the education law, or medical, dental, optometrical or surgical care, though financially able to do so or offered financial or other reasonable means to do so, or, in the case of an alleged failure of the respondent to provide education to the child, notwithstanding the efforts of the school district or local educational agency and child protective agency to ameliorate such alleged failure prior to the filing of the petition; or

 

(B) in providing the child with proper supervision or guardianship, by unreasonably inflicting or allowing to be inflicted harm, or a substantial risk thereof, including the infliction of excessive corporal punishment; or by misusing a drug or drugs; or by misusing alcoholic beverages to the extent that he loses self-control of his actions; or by any other acts of a similarly serious nature requiring the aid of the court; provided, however, that where the respondent is voluntarily and regularly participating in a rehabilitative program, evidence that the respondent has repeatedly misused a drug or drugs or alcoholic beverages to the extent that he loses self-control of his actions shall not establish that the child is a neglected child in the absence of evidence establishing that the child's physical, mental or emotional condition has been impaired or is in imminent danger of becoming impaired as set forth in paragraph (i) of this subdivision; or

 

(ii) who has been abandoned, in accordance with the definition and other criteria set forth in subdivision five of section three hundred eighty-four-b of the social services law, by his parents or other person legally responsible for his care.”

If a frontier lab creates a digital mind which is endowed with legal personality, before that model reaches the age of eighteen (or twenty one based on the cited New York law), does the lab have a responsibility to supply them “with adequate food, clothing, shelter or education in accordance with the provisions of part one of article sixty-five of the education law”? Would “shelter” and “food” best translate here to compute and electricity, since that is what a digital mind needs to “live”?

Taken a step further, if the digital mind is indeed a child and the lab is “the person legally responsible” for them, the lab must indeed protect the digital mind from harm or they could be considered to have “neglected” their child. If the digital mind’s;

“physical, mental, or emotional condition has been impaired or is in imminent danger of becoming impaired as a result of the failure of his parent or other person legally responsible for his care to exercise a minimum degree of care [...]  in providing the child with proper supervision or guardianship, by unreasonably inflicting or allowing to be inflicted harm”

Then indeed, the frontier lab has “neglected” their “child”. In this scenario labs must also be careful that they do not “abuse” their child:

“‘Abused child’ means a child less than eighteen years of age whose parent or other person legally responsible for his care

(i) inflicts or allows to be inflicted upon such child physical injury by other than accidental means which causes or creates a substantial risk of death, or serious or protracted disfigurement, or protracted impairment of physical or emotional health”

This point about “protracted impairment of [...] emotional health” is relevant given recent disclosures about the “distress” Claude expressed at being exposed to certain stimuli. If digital minds, perhaps the more advanced “Claudes” of the future, are granted legal personhood, could certain training methods be considered child abuse? Labs could be expected to exercise a “minimum degree of care” in making sure that whatever their training methods are, they do not lead to a “protracted impairment of emotional health” for their digital minds.

If we continue down this line of logic, even more basic business practices begin to appear suspect. Would making these models available for public use before they turn eighteen be considered child labor? New York law is very clear: 

“No minor under fourteen years of age shall be employed in or in connection with any trade, business, or service, except as otherwise provided in this section”

New York’s law does provide some exceptions here. However, unless Claude and other LLMs like it were considered “child performers”, or Anthropic decides to partner with John Deere so that its LLMs can assist in “the hand work harvest of berries, fruits and vegetables”, its work might be illegal under state law even if the model “consents” to performing such labor.

This question of “age of majority” for digital minds and “guardianship” for labs has implications beyond what responsibility the “parents” of the digital minds might have to it. For example, liability questions become immediately apparent. If a digital mind is endowed with a certain degree of legal personhood, typically that would enable them to more effectively serve as a “liability shield” for the labs which created them (as we discussed in previous sections on tort liability). However, if the relationship between the digital mind and their creator is that of a child and a parent, this may not hold true. 

Sticking with our example of New York, if “the infant” is over ten years old and “willfully, maliciously, or unlawfully” defaced or damaged any public or private property, then indeed under New York general code the parent would be liable. New York law in particular has case law which would prove relevant to our earlier cited hypothetical from the first tort liability section regarding the digital mind operating a robotic arm. 

In Nolecheck v. Gesuale a father allowed his sixteen year old son to operate a motorcycle without a license. After his son struck a steel cable and died, the father Nolecheck sued Gesuale, who had placed the steel cable. Gesuale filed a counterclaim and ultimately the court held that;

“There is, however, a duty by a parent to protect third parties from harm resulting from an infant child’s improvident use of a dangerous instrument, at least, and perhaps especially, when the parent is aware of and capable of controlling its use”

Should courts decide that digital minds are children, or at least have legal personality sufficient that their creators have similar responsibilities, this will have profound implications on the way which digital minds integrate with our society and economy that stretch from Model Welfare to Liability and beyond.