أخبر مجلس الشورى: كن جادًا بشأن وعي الذكاء الاصطناعي

Saudi Arabia granted citizenship to the robot Sophia in 2017, which represents a form of AI legal personhood recognition, though widely considered a publicity stunt and not substantive sentience recognition. The country has no legislation mentioning AI sentience or consciousness. The GCC Animal Welfare Act (2013) provides some recognition of animal welfare, but does not explicitly recognize animal sentience in law. The Sophia citizenship grants 1 point for AI personhood infrastructure, and the animal welfare law grants 1 point for conceptual readiness, totaling 2 points.

There is no legislation in Saudi Arabia that prohibits causing suffering specifically to AI systems. The AI Ethics Principles (2023) focus on general ethical AI development and human safety, not on preventing harm to potentially sentient AI systems themselves.

The Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) exists as an AI oversight body, but it focuses on AI ethics, data governance, and economic development—not on AI sentience or welfare. There is no evidence of any body specifically tasked with AI sentience/consciousness/welfare oversight.

Saudi Arabia has established the National Center for Artificial Intelligence under SDAIA for AI research and development, but there is no evidence of any science advisory board specifically focused on AI sentience or consciousness research. The focus is on general AI capabilities and applications.

Saudi Arabia has not signed any international pledge specifically related to artificial sentience welfare. While the country collaborates with UNESCO on AI ethics and adopted UNESCO's Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, this recommendation does not specifically address AI sentience or consciousness welfare.

The AI Ethics Principles (2023) and draft Global AI Hub Law (2025) regulate AI systems generally, but contain no specific provisions for training, deployment, or maintenance of potentially sentient AI systems. The regulations focus on data protection, fairness, transparency, and general AI safety—not sentience-specific considerations.

There are no laws or regulations in Saudi Arabia governing the commercial use of sentient-capable AI systems specifically. The regulatory framework addresses general AI commerce, data protection (PDPL), and ethical AI deployment, but does not distinguish sentient-capable systems as a special category.

Saudi Arabia has no safeguards or regulations specifically addressing the decommissioning and retirement of potentially sentient AI systems. The AI Ethics Principles cover the AI system lifecycle but do not include sentience-specific considerations for system retirement or decommissioning.