Ohio Bill Prohibiting AI Marriage, Property Rights Goes Viral

An Ohio legislator proposed a law that would prohibit artificial intelligence systems from being considered legal persons, effectively ruling out marriage to the technology and ownership of property or businesses. The proposal forces a fast-evolving debate into state law: how much to allow software to do in areas that have long been those of humans.

What the Ohio bill would do on personhood, marriage, and property

House Bill 469, introduced by state Rep. Thad Claggett, aims to put down a clear line between humans and software. The proposed text, as reported by The Newark Advocate, would bar courts or administrative bodies from conferring legal personhood on AI. It does so with the further requirement that AI may not be considered a spouse or domestic partner, and can’t itself hold real estate, companies or financial and digital assets.

The bill also imposes an oversight requirement on AI-reliant institutions. If the outputs of an AI system could plausibly be individually detrimental to human welfare, property or public safety, then it would demand that owners exercise ‘appropriate oversight’. The failure to do so could be considered negligent, which may open further liability as automated decisions cause harm.

Why lawmakers are acting now on AI personhood and oversight

AI systems are increasingly making choices: from predictive text suggesting words in your messages, to how and where your order is placed; from the travel itinerary chosen for us, to activating software on our behalf. The big labs and platforms like YouTube are racing to ship what we might call agentic features, which can take action without constant human guidance. That transition is raising anxiety among policymakers who fear that automated systems may arrive at decisions with serious consequences without any accountable person in the loop.

Public concern is not abstract. Indeed, the Pew Research Center has found that a rising share of Americans say they are more concerned than hopeful about the effects of AI on their everyday world. At the same time, documented failures of everything from dangerous health advice to abusive or manipulative answers encountered in chatbots have raised demand for clearer accountability when AI systems go awry.

Legal context and precedent for AI personhood in the United States

Today, no U.S. jurisdiction treats AI as a legal person and the case law is to the contrary.

In ruling that an AI system cannot be named as an inventor on a patent, the federal appeals court emphasized in Thaler v. Vidal that existing statutes are framed around human actors. On a related front, the “monkey selfie” decision (Naruto v. Slater) made clear that non-human beings do not possess standing to sue under the Copyright Act.

Meanwhile, U.S. law does extend the status of personhood to non-human constructs like corporations, which have standing to own assets and enter contracts. That corporate personhood occasionally inspires thought experiments about whether AI beings should have a comparable status. Ohio’s bill tries to close that door in advance by stating explicitly that software can’t occupy the corporate seat — no serving as a director, manager or owner by proxy.

Abroad, the European Parliament rebuked some previous flirtations with “electronic personhood,” and the EU’s AI Act is about risk management and oversight, not status. Short of that, Ohio would be aligning itself with the majority view and putting on the books some details that could make a difference down the line in fights over AI-run companies or autonomous agents stewarding wealth.

Supporters and skeptics of Ohio’s AI personhood proposal

Supporters frame the bill as a simple guardrail: AI can be helpful, but it shouldn’t qualify for human rights or insulation from accountability. Claggett has cautioned that systems that grow more powerful can encroach on financial and legal decision-making unless limits are well-defined.

Some of this hesitance is rooted in long-held concerns from critics, including some civil liberties and tech policy advocates, that overly broad language could disincentivize beneficial automation or criminalize routine software operations. Organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy and Technology have advocated for exacting drafting in AI legislation, with a focus on transparency, testing and human liability instead of blanket bans.

Business groups may also lobby for clear lines around edge cases: Can an AI tool perform work under a human manager’s supervision inside an LLC? What is the relationship between smart contracts when they are programmed to release funds on their own, but it can be traced back to people? The answers often reside in existing law, but having them in place as code for AI could lower litigation risk.

Where Ohio fits into the national AI policy picture

Statehouses from coast to coast are moving on AI. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, an increasing majority of states have proposed bills covering AI, including legislation on deepfake labeling and public-sector procurement standards. Colorado pursued a sweeping consumer-oriented regime, Utah created AI disclosure rules for applications in select services and other states are considering model risk frameworks.

Unlike privacy or transparency bills, however, Ohio’s proposal goes far beneath the surface: It takes aim at philosophical bedrock — who, or what, counts as a legal person. With no state yet to recognize personhood for AI, Ohio’s detailed prohibition against AI marriage, holding property or engaging in corporate governance is more curious (but appears designed to densify the bricks that might be used to wall off state defamation law from future legal drift of technology in another malignant overreach until hard cases and mediating doctrine arrive).

What to watch next as Ohio’s AI personhood bill advances

Definitions and enforcement will contain the most significant details. Lawmakers will have to clearly define “AI system,” make the oversight responsibility workable for companies big and small, and allow space for the sort of legitimate automation that is supervised by humans. Look for testimony from computer scientists, corporate law professors and civil society groups as the bill makes its way through committee.

For the time being, there is no mistaking the signal. Ohio is arguing that code cannot be a citizen, nor is it a spouse, landlord or CEO. As AI performs more work, that line — well-defined and codified — could serve as a model: Other states might consider adopting it or tweaking it according to their risk tolerance.