Self-owning corporations are legally possible
&gt;In two recent articles, Professor Shawn Bayern demonstrated that anyone
can confer legal personhood on an autonomous computer algorithm merely
by putting it in control of a limited liability company (LLC). 10 The algorithm
can exercise the rights of the entity, making them effectively rights of the
algorithm.<p>&gt;The rights of such an algorithmic entity (AE) would include the rights to
privacy, 11 to own property, to enter into contracts, to be represented by counsel, to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, 12 to equal protection of
the laws, 13 to speak freely, and perhaps even to spend money on political
campaigns. 14 Once an algorithm had such rights, Bayern observed, it would
also have the power to confer equivalent rights on other algorithms by form-
ing additional entities and putting those algorithms in control of them. 15<p>---<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;papers.ssrn.com&#x2F;sol3&#x2F;papers.cfm?abstract_id=2758222" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;papers.ssrn.com&#x2F;sol3&#x2F;papers.cfm?abstract_id=2758222</a><p>Shawn Bayern, The Implications of Modern Business Entity Law for the Regulation
of Autonomous Systems, 19 S TAN . T ECH . L. R EV . 93 (2015) [hereinafter Bayern, Entity
Law]; Shawn Bayern, Of Bitcoins, Independently Wealthy Software, and the Zero-Member
LLC, 108 N W . U. L. R EV . 1485 (2014) [hereinafter Bayern, Wealthy Software].<p>&gt;Abstract<p>&gt;Nonhuman autonomous systems are not legal persons under current law. The history of organizational law, however, demonstrates that agreements can, with increasing degrees of autonomy, direct the actions of legal persons. Agreements are isomorphic with algorithms; that is, a legally enforceable agreement can give legal effect to the arbitrary discernible states of an algorithm or other process. As a result, autonomous systems may end up being able, at least, to emulate many of the private-law rights of legal persons. This essay demonstrates a technique by which this is possible by means of limited liability companies (LLCs), a very flexible modern type of business organizations. The techniques that this essay describes are not just futuristic possibilities; as this essay argues, they are already possible under current law.