This essay examines the evolving concept of legal personality through the lens of recent developments in artificial intelligence and the possible emergence of superintelligence. Legal systems have long been open to extending personhood to non-human entities, most prominently corporations, for instrumental or inherent reasons. Instrumental rationales emphasize accountability and administrative efficiency, whereas inherent ones appeal to moral worth and autonomy. Neither is yet sufficient to justify conferring personhood on AI. Nevertheless, the acceleration of technological autonomy may lead us to reconsider how law conceptualizes agency and responsibility. Drawing on comparative jurisprudence, corporate theory, and the emerging literature on AI governance, the paper argues that existing frameworks can address short-term accountability gaps, but the eventual development of superintelligence may force a paradigmatic shift in our understanding of law itself. In such a speculative future, legal personality may depend less on the cognitive sophistication of machines than on humanity's ability to preserve our own moral and institutional sovereignty.

翻译：本文通过人工智能的最新发展以及超级智能可能出现的视角，审视了法律人格概念的演变。长期以来，法律体系基于工具性或内在性理由，一直对将人格延伸至非人类实体持开放态度，最显著的是公司。工具性理由强调问责制与行政效率，而内在性理由则诉诸道德价值与自主性。目前这两者均不足以证明赋予人工智能人格是合理的。然而，技术自主性的加速发展可能促使我们重新思考法律如何概念化能动性与责任。借鉴比较法学、公司理论以及新兴的人工智能治理文献，本文认为现有框架可以解决短期的问责空白，但超级智能的最终发展可能迫使我们从根本上转变对法律本身的理解。在这种推测性的未来中，法律人格可能更少取决于机器的认知复杂度，而更多取决于人类维护自身道德与制度主权的能力。