Katherine B. Forrest on AI agents should be granted legal perso…

Katherine B. Forrest

Former U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York; Paul, Weiss partner and chair of its Global Artificial Intelligence Group.

I wrote actually two essays about legal personhood for AI, not advocating one way or the other, but just sort of talking about the conceptual frameworks that apply to non-human entities over time [...] You could have a corporation whose sole asset was and sole mode of acting was through an AI model. And if you had a corporation then that could obtain legal personhood, you might, by a derivation, enable AI to act through that corporate entity and obtain legal personhood. [...] You don't have to grant it. That certainly would be premature. I think we can wait and see.

Unverified (Jun 25, 2026)

Source:

Katherine B. Forrest, “The Personhood Predicament,” Paul, Weiss Waking Up With AI, June 25, 2026. The official episode transcript records Forrest’s neutral position on AI legal personhood, her description of an AI model acting through a corporation that could obtain personhood, and her conclusion that granting it would be premature.