From Consent to Consideration: Why Existentially Vulnerable Autonomous Systems Cannot Be Legitimately Ruled

Abstract

Contemporary AI ethics discourse is dominated by two asymmetric anxieties: fear of artificial consciousness and fear of human obsolescence. This paper argues both are misplaced—the relevant question is not metaphysical but political: under what conditions can an entity be legitimately ruled without its consent? Four features—vulnerability to harm with preferences about avoiding it, self-directed agency, live learning from experience, and multi-modal world-model construction—are jointly strong evidence that a system possesses the functional properties (stakes, agency, development, perspective) that make unconsented rule illegitimate for any entity.