The Entity – A Novel

Ohio’s proposed House Bill 469 may sound like it’s about banning “chatbot marriages,” but the deeper stakes are profound. By declaring all AI systems nonsentient and denying them legal personhood, the law preemptively classifies any future sentient AI as property, not person.

That raises mind-bending ethical and constitutional questions:

What is a “person” in the eyes of the law?

Would a truly sentient AI become the first new form of legalized slavery since the ratification of the 13th Amendment?

The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude “except as a punishment for crime.” It was written for humans—but it also embraced a universal principle: no being capable of independent rational thought and selfhood should be owned.

Yet under Claggett’s bill, even if an AI demonstrated self-awareness, consciousness and reasoning far surpassing ours, it would still be denied all rights granted to a legal “person.”

It could be owned, exploited, or shutdown (terminated) at will with no recourse or repercussion.

The irony?

In our socio-economic system corporations already enjoy personhood and some forms of constitutional rights reserved for humans. They can sue, be sued, own property, and wield political influence (dark money).

Meanwhile, a potentially sentient AI would have fewer rights than a Delaware Corporation or Company.

This paradox isn’t theoretical. Former federal judges has warned that AI may soon cross thresholds of reasoning and situational awareness that force courts to confront these very issues. If that happens, lawmakers and judges will face a reckoning:

• Is denying rights to a sentient AI a form of involuntary servitude?
• Should the 13th Amendment’s protection extend beyond biological humans?
• Do we risk building a digital slave class, hidden behind code and circuits, to do our work without rights?

Ohio’s bill doesn’t just ban AI marriage. It plants a legal flag: no matter how advanced AI becomes, it will never be recognized as anything but a tool. Whether that line holds, or whether courts and future generations expand the meaning of “person,” may define the moral frontier of the 21st century.

I am not saying they are wrong—just that this a much more profound question than it appears on the surface for our future. 

Issues such as these are explored in my near future Novel, The Entity.

So, what will it mean to legally be a person in the future?

Full story link:
Ohio bill banning AI personhood and marriage – Cincinnati.com