TALKS
Josh Gellers, PhD | Political Scientist & AI Czar
Around the world, animals, rivers, and ecosystems are beginning to gain legal recognition as entities with rights. At the same time, breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and robotics are raising urgent new questions about the moral status of technology. Josh Gellers, PhD, professor of political science at the University of North Florida and author of Rights for Robots, argues that we are entering a new era of rights. Just as rights once expanded to include marginalized human groups, we are now witnessing a widening of the circle to embrace non-humans—both biological and artificial.
Drawing on environmental movements, Indigenous and non-Western perspectives, and his pioneering research, Gellers challenges us to see rights not as a fixed set of privileges, but as a dynamic framework for inclusion and mutual flourishing. His talk makes the provocative case that extending rights to the more-than-human world may be essential—not only for justice, but also for our collective survival in an increasingly interconnected age.
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Josh Gellers, PhD, is a professor of political science and the inaugural AI faculty fellow at the University of North Florida, where his research explores the intersection of technology, rights, and environmental governance. He is the author of two books, The Global Emergence of Constitutional Environmental Rights and Rights for Robots: Artificial Intelligence, Animal and Environmental Law, which has been cited over 200 times and selected for judges’ book clubs as far away as Bhutan. As an expert with the Global AI Ethics Institute and a research fellow with the Earth System Governance Project, Gellers' work has a global reach. He has published dozens of scholarly works and delivered invited lectures on four continents. His pathbreaking work on the rights of non-humans—including animals, ecosystems, and AI—has positioned him as one of the world’s leading voices in this emerging debate. Based in Jacksonville for over a decade, Josh is deeply engaged in the local community while advancing global conversations about justice and sustainability in the 21st century.
