Beyond human agency: exploring the social and legal subjectivity of artificial intelligence

The paper explores the transformation of traditional concepts of social and legal subjectivity under the influence of artificial intelligence. The authors reflect on how algorithms with autonomy and the ability to self-learn redefine the boundaries between human and nonhuman agency, becoming active participants in socio-technical networks. This redefinition forms hybrid systems of human-machine interaction. The aim of the paper is to substantiate the need to recognize the limited legal personality of AI, similar to corporate entities, and to develop regulatory mechanisms that take into account the distributed responsibility between algorithms, developers and users. The paper gives priority to humanitarian expertise as a tool for assessing the ethical, social and environmental consequences of the introduction of AI. Among other things, the paper considers cognitive dilemmas, a comparison of the “disembodied” thinking of AI with Eastern philosophical traditions (Zen Buddhism, Taoism), and ethical challenges associated with discrimination and transparency of algorithms. Using an interdisciplinary approach that combines philosophical, legal, and social perspectives, the authors demonstrate that AI subjectivity is constructed through its embeddedness in material and practical networks. Humanitarian expertise is seen as a response to the challenges of transparency, discrimination, and environmental sustainability, proposing an ethics of assemblages where responsibility is shared among all participants in hybrid systems. The authors conclude that a future where algorithms and humans coexist as equal (but not identical) participants in society depends on the ability of science, law, and society to find common ground in conditions of radical uncertainty.