Paper's abstract

Sonia Canselier, Non-Human Intelligence and Law : Remarks about Animal Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence
How does the Law handle Non-Human Intelligence ? The answer is not easy to formulate for a French jurist. From observations on Animal Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence, some remarks may be drawn up. A legal recognition of Non-Human Intelligence is possible. Elements can be found in Science and in social practices to plead this way. Nevertheless, forms and implications of such recognition are not so clear to point. The status which should be granted to intelligent entities (machine or animal) is still the object of intense controversies. Although the Legal order takes root in the human intelligence (which is everywhere and nowhere in Law, because it is not a legal concept as such), it is not the intelligence that is the basement of juridical personality. When searching for the consequences of Non-Human intelligent actions, particularly in the domain of Liability and accountability, it turns out that Human beings remain the only real legal actors.

Key Words : Animal – Great Apes – Cognition – Artificial Intelligence – Expert systems – Virtual agent – Robots – Legal Personality – Lia
tome 55, 2012: p.207-229

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