Rioters attack and damage a sophotect counselor. Its destruction would not have counted as murder legally but Fenn wonders whether it would be murder morally. I would have said yes. However, such sophotects regularly willingly merge with the cybercosm and thus cease to exist as individuals. Furthermore, a destroyed sophotect could at any time be re-created from the database, lacking only its memories since its last merger. Thus, to destroy the sophotect's body would be no more than to switch it off. This does not have the moral implications of permanently ending an intelligent consciousness. Morality will have to be reconceptualized if such technology is ever realized.
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Kaor, Paul!
Now you are raising questions that would have to concern lawyers, jurists, and legislators! If, of course, such things as AIs are even possible. And which in turn reminded me of this bit from the very end of "The Troubletwisters," after Chee Lan and Falkayn protested the ship computer, Muddlehead, could not bluff at poker, being a machine, despite obtaining valuable trading goods: "I am not programmed to predict how a court would adjudicate title to those articles," said Muddlehead. "However, my understanding is that in a commercially and individualistically oriented civilization, any legitimate earnings belong to the earner."
So, assuming the possibility of there being AIs, as individuals, under the reasoning given above, they would be considered persons. What complicates matters is how, in THE HARVEST OF STARS books, AIs continually merge into each other, how "individuals" are only temporarily detached from the whole. Legally, only the entirety of the cybercosm might be considered a person, not temporarily detached "individuals."
Ad astra! Sean
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