Michael Pollan on AI agents should be granted legal perso…

Michael Pollan

Journalist; bestselling nonfiction author

[...] have to think about granting them personhood, for example, the way we've granted corporations personhood. I think that would be insane.

AI Verified source (Feb 19, 2026)

3mo ago

Policy proposals and claims

AI agents should be granted legal personhood as non-human corporations

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AI Verified In the article section about moral obligations to chatbots, Pollan says granting chatbots personhood like corporations would be "insane" and that giving them rights would make people lose control of them. That clearly shows opposition to granting AI agents legal personhood as non-human corporations. ([kpbs.org](https://www.kpbs.org/news/science-technology/2026/02/19/michael-pollan-says-ai-may-think-but-it-will-never-be-conscious)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3mo ago

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AI Verified In context, Pollan says granting AI personhood like corporations "would be insane" and that "giving them rights" would make humans "lose control of them completely," which is explicit opposition to the statement. ([kpbs.org](https://www.kpbs.org/news/science-technology/2026/02/19/michael-pollan-says-ai-may-think-but-it-will-never-be-conscious)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3mo ago

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AI Verified Verified. The Fresh Air transcript labels this answer as spoken by POLLAN and contains the matching passage about granting chatbots personhood and calling that idea insane. The provided KPBS page reproduces the same passage under "Interview highlights" and is published on February 19, 2026, so the stored author, date, source URL, and quoted text are correct. ([freshairarchive.org](https://freshairarchive.org/segments/michael-pollan-says-ai-may-think-it-will-never-be-conscious)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3mo ago

replying to Michael Pollan