Yuval Noah Harari: Will AI Become Legal Persons?

Why This Davos Talk Cuts to the Core Question

Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens and Homo Deus, delivered one of the most intellectually provocative talks at Davos 2026. Rather than debating AI capabilities or economic impact, he posed a question that will define the coming decade: Will your country recognize AI as legal persons?

The knife metaphor is his sharpest tool: "AI is not just another tool. It is an agent." A knife is a tool - you decide whether it cuts salad or commits murder. But AI is "a knife that can decide by itself whether to cut salad or to commit murder." This distinction - between tools and agents - underpins everything that follows.

The Anglo-Saxon mercenary story cuts deep. Harari recounts the myth of Vortigern, the British king who imported Anglo-Saxon mercenaries to fight his enemies. They fought well. Then they looked around, saw a rich country with weak, disunited people, and took over. "We understand this with human mercenaries... We don't get it with AIs." Leaders think AI will fight their wars for them without considering it might simply take power.

On words and human supremacy: Harari argues humans conquered the world through language - the ability to use words to coordinate millions of strangers. "This was our superpower. And now something has emerged that is going to take our superpower from us." If thinking means putting words in order, AI already thinks better than many humans. Therefore: laws, books, and religion - all made of words - will be "taken over by AI."

The immigration framing is deliberately provocative. AI immigrants will "travel at the speed of light without any need of visas." They'll take jobs, change culture, reshape religion and romance. And unlike human immigrants, their loyalty runs to corporations or governments "across the ocean, most probably in one of only two countries: China or the USA."

The legal personhood question is already late. AI bots have been "operating as functional persons" on social media for a decade. "10 years from now, it will be too late for you to decide whether AIs should function as persons in the financial markets, in the courts, in the churches." Someone else will have decided for you.

Key Takeaways

• AI is agent, not tool - It can learn, change, make decisions, lie, and manipulate by itself
• Words are our superpower - Humans conquered through language; AI is becoming the new master of words
• Identity crisis incoming - If we define ourselves by thinking in words, and AI does that better, human identity collapses
• Legal personhood is the question - Corporations, rivers, and gods are already legal persons; AI can actually function as one
• 10-year window is closing - Decisions about AI personhood in finance, courts, and religion are being made now

Implications for Organizations

Harari's framework suggests organizations should be asking harder questions than "how do we implement AI?" The real question is how to maintain human agency when the systems we deploy can act as agents themselves. His Anglo-Saxon mercenary warning applies directly to enterprise AI: the tools you bring in to fight your competitive battles have their own agency and loyalties.

The "AI as immigrant" framing also surfaces a genuine governance gap. If AI systems can operate across borders at the speed of light, national regulatory frameworks are fundamentally mismatched to the challenge. For global organizations, this means navigating an emerging patchwork of AI personhood laws - or their absence.