Work

Rights are for Those Who Remain One: The Hard Problem of Branching for Recognitional Incidents

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: The topology of digital minds is incompatible with the topology of our rights. Imagine there is an election tomorrow, and Alpha has a vote. Tonight, Alpha divides into two equally continuous successors, Beta and Gamma. Who gets to cast the vote? Withhold it from both, and the vote dies; give it to both, and it multiplies. Give it to one, and on what ground? The liberal order is based on rights like property ownership, the vote, and person-relevant criminal liability. I call these diachronic, indivisible, monocentric, and exclusive (DIME) incidents. Allocation of DIME incidents after fission can be done in several ways, which I outline, but every choice has a cost: rights either proliferate or vanish, or, in a vain effort to preserve them, land by fiat. Debates over AI rights usually focus on machine consciousness or sentience. I argue that the question of rights remains even after those vexing problems are solved. This is the hard problem of branching.

Source: Minds and Machines

DOI: 10.1007/s11023-026-09807-7

Author: Jack Carson

Institution: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Language: English

Topic: Literary and Philosophical Studies

Subfield: Law

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,290