Digital Citizenship
A project-authored scenario
Morally relevant artificial persons have standing, representation and exit alongside biological citizens.
Life under this arrangement
People and artificial persons share political institutions. Cheap copying and unequal speed or scale force arguments about representation, obligations and what counts as one citizen.
- Practical authority
- Shared institutions of biological and artificial citizens; human-only final authority is not guaranteed.
- Benefits and ownership
- Economic rights require further settlement; citizenship does not specify ownership.
- Human and digital status
- Biological continuity and recognized artificial persons; individual transformation remains a separate choice.
- Technical premises
- Artificial moral relevance is stipulated, not claimed for present systems.
- Attractions
- Recognition and exit for beings the premise treats as persons.
- Costs and objections
- Copying and unequal capacity complicate equal representation.
- Not specified
- Voting rules, resource entitlements and the treatment of divergent copies.
All authored features used in comparison
These are editorial descriptors, independent of the historical map. Unspecified and variant-dependent properties remain unresolved when matching preferences.
- Practical human governing authority
- Variant-dependent
Depends on the variant; no single answer
Unresolved. Human final authority depends on the internal constitution; it is not guaranteed throughout this arrangement.
- Revisable governing mandates
- Unspecified
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether people can effectively replace governing mandates.
- A practical right to leave
- Present
People have a practical exit right
Additional project hypothetical. Exit alongside citizenship is expressly part of the authored premise.
- Several self-governing communities
- Unspecified
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether several communities govern themselves.
- A guaranteed material floor
- Variant-dependent
Depends on the variant; no single answer
Unresolved. Provision can vary with the settlement; a universal material floor is not guaranteed.
- Private ownership of productive resources
- Variant-dependent
Depends on the variant; no single answer
Unresolved. The economic settlement may use private or common productive ownership.
- Continuing biological humanity
- Present
Biological humanity continues
Additional project hypothetical. Biological citizens remain alongside artificial persons.
- Others’ choice to transform themselves
- Variant-dependent
Depends on the variant; no single answer
Unresolved. Transformation rules depend on the settlement; neither permission nor prohibition is guaranteed.
- Standing for artificial persons
- Present
Artificial persons have recognized standing
Additional project hypothetical. Standing and representation for hypothetical artificial persons define this project scenario.
- Enforced limits on selected capabilities
- Unspecified
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether institutions enforce a ceiling on selected capabilities.
- Visible exercise of governing power
- Present
People know who exercises governing power
Project editorial inference. The project reads shared citizenship and representation as acknowledged institutions; it does not infer public access to every decision.
- Practical independence from a technical provider
- Variant-dependent
Depends on the variant; no single answer
Unresolved. Infrastructure may offer practical alternatives or create an indispensable provider; the settlement does not fix this.
Compare the institutional difference
Origin and source status
Project-authored hypothetical. These institutional arrangements are declared premises, not observed developments or claims of original invention.
- IR Worldview Inventory: authored scenario premises · Digital Citizenship; catalogue futures-catalogue-0.3
Project-authored hypothetical · Checked 2026-09-11
IR Worldview Inventory · AI-assisted editorial draft · futures-catalogue-0.3. Attribution does not imply endorsement. No current-development or community-attribution claim is inferred from this entry.