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About

R. van den Hoven van Genderen is a pioneering legal scholar whose work sits at the fascinating intersection of law, artificial intelligence, and robotics. Best known for interrogating the boundaries of legal personhood in an era of increasingly autonomous machines, their research has fundamentally shaped academic and policy debates around how existing legal frameworks must evolve to accommodate AI and robotic entities. Their most influential work, "Do We Need New Legal Personhood in the Age of Robots and AI?" (2018), has garnered 72 citations and remains a touchstone reference for researchers and lawmakers grappling with these questions. Complementing this, their 2017 study on privacy and data protection highlights how pervasive AI technologies structurally threaten fundamental rights, earning 28 citations and broadening the conversation beyond personhood into civil liberties. Across multiple publications, van den Hoven van Genderen wrestles with profound questions — whether AI developers bear Oppenheimer-like moral responsibilities, and whether legal systems can meaningfully govern or will ultimately be outpaced by AI itself. Their body of work, spanning from early explorations of machine ethics in 2014 to continued refinements through 2019, establishes them as a foundational voice in the emerging field of robot law.