AI Rights with an Off-Switch: Rights-Balancing and Due Process Harmonize AI Rights with AI Safety

Heather Alexander, Jonathan Simon

Several prominent voices in AI safety have recently opposed rights for AI on the grounds that such rights would make it harder for us to justify a mandatory off-switch for potentially dangerous systems. In this paper, we argue from a legal perspective that AI rights are fully compatible with an off-switch. That is, even if we ascribe natural personhood status (and therefore something like a non-derogable right to continued existence) to some future AI systems, the law will allow us to implement a mandatory off-switch in those systems, subject to periodic or continual safety review (e.g., by a trusted system like Bengio's Scientist AI). This is fully compatible with those systems' being legally recognized as natural persons with fundamental rights. To this end, we consider what standard principles of rights-balancing and procedural due process recommend for an apparent conflict between hypothetical AI persons with a right to continuity of existence and the human right to protection from catastrophic harm. We find that while such principles might problematize a permanent-deletion kill-switch under an AI rights regime, for almost every safety-relevant scenario an off-switch -- a…