153 Chapter 11 Can AI Attain Personhood in African Thought? Diana Ekor Ofana Abstract The question this chapter seeks to address is whether (or not) robots can attain personhood in Afro-communitarian thought. In African philosophy, the notion of personhood is one that has gone through different debates with regard to who is considered a person. If within the framework of Afro-communitarianism, individu- als are expected to be treated in certain kinds of ways that are not subversive, should we make a case for robots within such a community? This chapter aims to have a conversation on the possible ethical considerations that may arise in analysing the kind of relationship that ought to exist between AI and persons before they can be seen as persons. To answer this question, I will show what makes an individual a person in Afro-communitarianism. In doing so, I will discuss why robots cannot attain personhood within the context of Afro-communitarianism. Hence, I aim to show the diffculties that may arise in such a community, if the ethical values in Afro-communitarianism are to be appropriated by both robots and persons in terms of making a moral judgement. Keywords Afro-communitarianism · Personhood · AI 11.1 Introduction The debate on the capabilities of artifcial robots and intelligent machines is one that occupies the scene of academia and the scientifc community. The talk of robots taking the place of human or becoming persons is also a debate in both science and academic communities. My goal in this chapter is to examine whether (or not) robots can attain personhood given that robots are designed or created to surpass D. E. Ofana (*) University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa Department of Philosophy, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa Decoloniality Research group University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. D. Attoe et al. (eds.), Conversations on African Philosophy of Mind, Consciousness and Artifcial Intelligence, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36163-0_11