Do note that animals and plants as we currently know them are not included in the question, as that would result in a trivial market.
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@Lsusr Corporations are already defined within the legal framework of most countries, so they would not qualify.
(Hence the specific request for a "new" entity in the market title.)
@PaulBenjaminPhotographer In order to pay taxes, you need to have the right to own property, at the very least, so that would most likely qualify.
Technically, already happened:
In October 2017, Sophia was granted Saudi Arabian citizenship, becoming the first robot to receive legal personhood in any country.
Can you offer some clarification about what qualifies as a "legal right"?
For example, if AI-generated works are granted copyright that is assigned to the AI's owner, then that's not enough to resolve YES, right?
But if copyright is instead assigned to the AI itself, and it was explicitly allowed to engage in some forms of commerce, then is that YES?
@DanHomerick You are correct. Copyright being granted to the AI's users/owners/etc. would have some legal implications but still operate within the framework of AI being a "tool with no rights".
Your second example, on the other, would result in the much more substantial development this market is about.
@AmadeoBordiga I implicitly excluded them, as the market would be trivial otherwise.
Will add a clarification in the description.
@MFS I don't see in what way that is trivial. One could well make a case that intelligent animals like great apes and cetaceans should have rights, and they currently don't. The question of whether they'll be recognized any rights seems like it could go either way, at least to a comparable extent as other questions on this site... no? What am I missing?
@BrunoParga In the case of animals, there is an established legal precedent about them, even though they are not considered on the same level as humans: for example, many countries are laws against animal cruelty, while no comparable concept exists for AI or robots.
Now you do have a point in saying that the recognition of rights for animals could have a substantial evolution in the future, but essentially that's simply outside of the scope of this market.
@MFS I would have thought that the natural case is trivial because of the ‘any’ in ‘any country’. E.g., Ecuador has established constitutional rights for some nonhuman natural entities. Not sure if things like cruelty laws should count as ‘legal rights’?
That is another great point, @AmadeoBordiga.
In the case of AI or robots, the establishment of hypothetical laws to prevent cruelty against them would mean a substantial shift in perception, from "soulless tool" to "living creature capable of suffering".