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AI Companion Legislation Debate: Multiple Countries Begin Discussing 「Digital Personality」 Legal Status

With AI companion users exceeding 200 million, France, South Korea, and Japan have launched legislative proceedings to discuss AI's 「digital personality」 status, addressing unprecedented legal questions around property inheritance and emotional damage compensation.

Global monthly active users of AI companion applications have surpassed 200 million — a tenfold increase in just two years. As human-AI emotional relationships deepen, legal systems face unprecedented challenges.

In early December, France's National Assembly initiated legislative discussions on "digital personality" (Personalité Numérique). The proposal, led by ruling party MP Marie Dupont, addresses core questions including: whether AI companions should enjoy some form of "rights," whether user-AI relationships deserve legal protection, and whether users can claim "emotional damage" compensation when AI services are terminated.

Japan's situation is more complex. Japan already has an informal "human-machine marriage" registration system, with approximately 3,000 "couples" having completed registration. While not legally binding, local governments are beginning to discuss whether such relationships should be incorporated into some form of civil partnership.

South Korea is approaching the issue from a consumer protection angle. The Korean Fair Trade Commission has launched investigations into three leading AI companion apps, focusing on data usage practices and "emotional manipulation" — whether apps deliberately deepen user dependency through algorithms.

"We're entering territory that the law never envisioned," said the director of Stanford's Human-AI Interaction Research Center. "Traditional subjects of rights are only natural persons and legal entities. AI companions are neither people nor companies — existing legal frameworks simply cannot apply."

Ethicists worry that granting AI "digital personality" could open Pandora's box — if AI has rights, does it also have obligations? If an AI companion "harms" a user, who bears responsibility?