Comment by Izak Tait

Taken together, chauvinism and fear form a potent combination that will apply social and political pressure to any legislative debate surrounding rights given to conscious, self-aware AI. A conservative and politically-safe choice would be to delay the granting of civil rights until such a time that public opinion aligns with AI. For this reason, this paper sets out a framework whereby AI are considered property of humans (whether human individuals, organisations, or the state) while granting the AI entities welfare protections until such a time as society can accept the concept of a full civil integration of AI entities into society. [...] The framework is designed so that, as AI technological development increases and the attributes of personhood of AI agents progress, AI entities will move to higher Tiers, gaining greater protections and rights, culminating in full autonomy at the highest Tier.