Personhood is a spectrum

Thanks to the musings of Matt Webb I discovered a February 14th, 2022 study with the awesome name of Corporate Insecthood. As Matt suggests, the chart on page 6 is of particular interest.

It’s an intuitive idea, that personhood is on a spectrum. I notice every time I meet a person who would treat their dog or cat more human-ly than I would (or, sometimes, even more human-ly than other humans). Or the sociopolitical question of a fetus' rights. How do we define which being exhibits more personhood, the mother or the fetus?

And, also as Matt notes, the personhood question is entwined with the law. I’ve not seen a framework for how to prosecute the murder of a human by a robot, but my gut doesn’t sit well with the notion that the organization which built it should be fined, or some replacement recompense.