Terminology and key concepts

Working definitions for recurring terms in robot-rights research. These definitions are intended to keep discussion precise; they are not claims that any present system has a particular moral or legal status.

How to read this glossary

The vocabulary in this field crosses engineering, philosophy, law, and governance. The same word can carry different meanings in different disciplines. robot-rights.net therefore uses the definitions below as working research terms and states distinctions explicitly where they matter.

Scope note: “robot rights” is used here as an umbrella research term. Physical embodiment can matter, but some questions also apply to non-embodied autonomous artificial systems. Inclusion in the discussion does not itself imply rights, consciousness, personhood, or legal recognition.

Systems and agency

Terms used to describe the kinds of artificial systems under discussion.

Robot: A physically embodied artificial system able to sense, process information, and act in the world to some degree. The term does not by itself imply autonomy, intelligence, consciousness, or legal status.
Artificial entity: A deliberately broad research term for an artificial system treated as a distinguishable unit of analysis. It may be embodied or non-embodied and does not imply personhood or independent legal existence.
AI system: A computational system that produces outputs such as predictions, decisions, recommendations, content, or actions from inputs. AI capability alone is not treated here as evidence of moral or legal status.
Autonomous system: A system able to select or execute actions without continuous direct human instruction within some operational domain. Autonomy is a matter of degree and context rather than a simple yes-or-no property.
Agent: A system usefully described as pursuing goals, selecting actions, or interacting with an environment. “Agent” can be a functional description and does not necessarily imply subjective experience or moral agency.
Agency: The capacity attributed to a system to initiate, select, or adapt actions in relation to goals or circumstances. Different philosophical and technical accounts set different thresholds for agency.

Continuity and identity

Terms that become important when artificial systems can be updated, copied, transferred, or distributed.

Embodiment: The condition of operating through a physical body or hardware situated in the world. Embodiment may affect risk, interaction, continuity, and social perception, but is not assumed here to be a necessary condition for every rights-related question.
Persistence: The degree to which a system continues across time as a traceable operational entity despite pauses, maintenance, migration, or change.
Identity: The basis on which a system is regarded as the same entity across time or change. For artificial systems, identity questions may involve hardware, software state, memory, cryptographic records, institutional registration, or other continuity criteria.
Continuity: The connection between earlier and later states of a system. Continuity can be technical, informational, functional, institutional, or experiential; these forms should not be assumed to be equivalent.

Recognition, status, and rights

Terms that should be kept separate rather than treated as synonyms.

Moral consideration: The idea that an entity’s condition, interests, experiences, or treatment may need to be taken into account in moral reasoning. Moral consideration can be discussed without assuming full moral status or legal rights.
Moral status: A philosophical concept concerning whether and why an entity matters morally in its own right, and what kinds of duties others may have toward it. There is no settled test for artificial systems.
Recognition: The formal or informal treatment of an artificial system as a distinguishable entity for a particular purpose, such that some aspect of its identity, continuity, role, standing, or status is acknowledged. Recognition may be operational, relational, institutional, administrative, or legal; it need not imply moral status, legal rights, or personhood.
Legal status: The position or classification assigned to an entity within a legal system. Different legal statuses can carry different capacities, protections, restrictions, duties, or procedural consequences.
Legal rights: Rights recognized or enforceable under law. A legal system can create specific rights without necessarily granting the full bundle of capacities associated with legal personhood.
Legal personhood: A form of legal recognition under which an entity can hold some set of legal rights, duties, powers, or liabilities. Legal personhood is not identical to human personhood and should not be assumed to be the only possible form of future recognition.

Responsibility and control

Terms used to keep discussion of artificial systems compatible with clear human and institutional responsibility.

Responsibility: A broad concept covering who is expected to act, supervise, explain, prevent harm, remedy failure, or answer for outcomes. Responsibility can be moral, professional, organizational, contractual, or legal.
Accountability: The structures through which actions and decisions can be traced, explained, reviewed, challenged, and assigned to responsible actors. Greater system autonomy should not be treated automatically as disappearance of human or institutional accountability.
Control: The practical or legal ability to direct, constrain, modify, suspend, transfer, or terminate a system or its operation. Control can be distributed among developers, owners, operators, users, platforms, and institutions.
Ownership: A legal relationship concerning property and control. Whether ownership remains an adequate or complete framework for increasingly autonomous artificial systems is an open institutional question, not a conclusion assumed by this glossary.