Kolt notes that the US Restatement (Third) of Agency holds that a computer program “is not capable of acting as a principal or an agent as defined by the common law” and that “at present, computer programs are instrumentalities” of their users, and he uses agency law and principal–agent economics to analyse AI agents’ problems of information asymmetry, discretionary authority and loyalty.

SocioLens project,

Claim LD01-SL-C11 (v1.0)

Provenance and status

Claim type: Fact and Interpretation
Publication status: Eligible for publication, with qualifiers: legal scope
Verification state: Checked against the primary source; the source is a preprint. Who checked this claim is not recorded for it; claim checks so far were AI-led, and no person has checked claims against their sources.
Does not license: A claim that AI systems have intentions, or a statement of current law outside the US Restatement
Limitations: Read in the arXiv PDF dated 11 February 2025 (the version number is not stated in the file); the published law-review version was not compared; the Restatement wording is quoted by the author and was not checked against the Restatement itself
Source (as cited): Kolt, “Governing AI Agents,” arXiv:2501.07913, 2025 (forthcoming in the Notre Dame Law Review)
Source type: Preprint (recorded as “Preprint (law review article, forthcoming)”)
Institutional position: Independent academic (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Maturity of the evidence: Emerging evidence
Recorded date: 16 October 2026
Currentness / correction: This is the current version. No correction or concern is recorded on its sources.

Sources this version cites

Kolt, “Governing AI Agents,” arXiv:2501.07913, 2025 (forthcoming in the Notre Dame Law Review) (Preprint)
Read the original

Version

This page shows version v1.0. Its record never changes, even when newer evidence arrives; the site may add a note to the page or withhold a figure not cleared for public use.

This pinned version is also the current version.

Versions: v1.0 · current

Raw record: every recorded field, with its coded values

All 25 canonical Claim fields, verbatim, with the coded values derived from them. The plain-language labels above are read from these.

Claim type (coded): FACT + INTERPRETATION (as printed: “FACT + INTERPRETATION”)
Publication status (coded): ELIGIBLE (LEGAL_SCOPE) (as printed: “ELIGIBLE WITH LEGAL-SCOPE QUALIFIER”)
Verification state (coded): CONTENT_VERIFIED_PRIMARY (PREPRINT)
Source type (coded): PREPRINT
Maturity (coded): EMERGING

#	Canonical field	Canonical value (verbatim)	Normalized (Claim Value Vocabulary v1.0.2)
1	CLAIM ID	LD01-SL-C11	—
2	PUBLIC-FACING CLAIM	Kolt notes that the US Restatement (Third) of Agency holds that a computer program “is not capable of acting as a principal or an agent as defined by the common law” and that “at present, computer programs are instrumentalities” of their users, and he uses agency law and principal–agent economics to analyse AI agents’ problems of information asymmetry, discretionary authority and loyalty.	—
3	CLAIM TYPE	FACT + INTERPRETATION	base_types: FACT, INTERPRETATION
4	RESEARCH STRAND	A — What each account says generative AI is, and what it predicts	—
5	MATURITY	EMERGING	states: EMERGING
6	SOURCE	Kolt, “Governing AI Agents,” arXiv:2501.07913, 2025 (forthcoming in the Notre Dame Law Review)	source_ids: SRC-SL-KOLT-GOVERNING-AI-AGENTS-ARXIV-2501-07913
7	SOURCE TYPE	Preprint (law review article, forthcoming)	classes: PREPRINT
8	INSTITUTIONAL POSITION	Independent academic (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)	—
9	SCOPE	US common law of agency; AI systems that plan and execute tasks with limited human involvement	—
10	DESIGN	Legal and economic analysis	—
11	SAMPLE / DATASET	Not applicable	—
12	MODEL / TOOL / VERSION	AI agents in general; the paper cites developers’ agent products as motivation	—
13	COMPARATOR	Human agents under agency law	—
14	MAIN RESULT	In US common law a program is an instrumentality, not an agent; the author treats the agent framing as a governance lens and proposes inclusivity, visibility and liability as safeguards	—
15	INFERENTIAL TARGET	How law classifies AI agents, and what the agent framing implies for governance	—
16	DOES NOT LICENSE	A claim that AI systems have intentions, or a statement of current law outside the US Restatement	—
17	VERIFICATION STATE	CONTENT VERIFIED PREPRINT	state: CONTENT_VERIFIED_PRIMARY · qualifiers: PREPRINT · verified_by: UNKNOWN
18	LIMITATIONS	Read in the arXiv PDF dated 11 February 2025 (the version number is not stated in the file); the published law-review version was not compared; the Restatement wording is quoted by the author and was not checked against the Restatement itself	—
19	CONTRADICTORY / SUPPORTING SOURCES	The EU’s legal category for models: LD01-SL-C36	—
20	GEOGRAPHY / LANGUAGE	US / English	—
21	DISTRIBUTIONAL LEDGER	Not analysed in this claim	—
22	R01 / FIELD-MAP LINKS	LD-01, T4, D6	—
23	WHAT WOULD CHANGE THIS CLAIM?	Courts or a revised Restatement treating an AI system as an agent in law	—
24	PUBLICATION STATUS	ELIGIBLE WITH LEGAL-SCOPE QUALIFIER	state: ELIGIBLE · qualifiers: LEGAL_SCOPE
25	RECORDED DATE	2026-10-16	—

Field 22 references resolved against Field Map v0.2: LD-01 (LIVING_DEBATE); T4 (TENSION); D6 (DOMAIN)

The sources as recorded, with their record IDs and coded source types:

Pinned Sources (field 6, version-specific)

“Kolt, “Governing AI Agents,” arXiv:2501.07913, 2025 (forthcoming in the Notre Dame Law Review)” → Kolt (2025), “Governing AI Agents” (SRC-SL-KOLT-GOVERNING-AI-AGENTS-ARXIV-2501-07913--v1.0) — Kolt, “Governing AI Agents,” arXiv:2501.07913, 2025 (forthcoming in the Notre Dame Law Review); class PREPRINT (explicit public provenance pin)

Cited by Living Debate versions

What kind of thing is generative AI, and does the answer predict anything? (v0.1) LD-01

Cite this page

SocioLens project. (2026, October 16). Kolt notes that the US Restatement (Third) of Agency holds that a computer program “is not capable of acting as a principal or an agent as defined by the common law” and that “at present, computer programs are instrumentalities” of their users, and he uses agency law and principal–agent economics to analyse AI agents’ problems of information asymmetry, discretionary authority and loyalty [Claim LD01-SL-C11, version v1.0]. SocioLens. https://sociolens-web.pages.dev/claims/ld01-sl-c11/v1.0/

@misc{sociolens_ld01_sl_c11_v1_0,
  author = {{SocioLens project}},
  title = {Kolt notes that the US Restatement (Third) of Agency holds that a computer program “is not capable of acting as a principal or an agent as defined by the common law” and that “at present, computer programs are instrumentalities” of their users, and he uses agency law and principal–agent economics to analyse AI agents’ problems of information asymmetry, discretionary authority and loyalty.},
  year = {2026},
  date = {2026-10-16},
  howpublished = {\url{https://sociolens-web.pages.dev/claims/ld01-sl-c11/v1.0/}},
  note = {Claim LD01-SL-C11, version v1.0}
}

The link points to this version, whose record never changes. For a finding, cite the original study as well: SocioLens summarizes research and does not replace it.

Research-of-record provenance

Materialized by sociolens-materializer 0.6.0 at 2026-09-28T20:00:00.000Z; normalization contract SocioLens — Claim Value Vocabulary v1.0.2 — Pre-Spike Materialization Contract (v1.0.2). Content seal SHA-256 b36573c3ba731c37de7818d606bd5a5fa051217359c55a0f20bf171c67ad86ae.

Repository-authored inputs (not Drive exports)

SocioLens claim — LD01-SL-C11 v1.0 (v1.0) — written in the SocioLens repository by Project Lead (Claude, AI) on 2026-10-16; no Drive identity exists. Authority: AGENTS.md "Authority" (the Project Lead decides research content within the research-integrity rules) and the Owner's choice in the SocioLens project chat on 16 October 2026 to build the LD-01 debate; a new Claim, first version, written from the project's LD-01 source notes, checked against full texts, official web pages or official abstracts. Block “ENTRY 11 — LD01-SL-C11” SHA-256 b8d5f8884b7c4f43364b363d96deb7a8a6347647586d1ee06bfc9b75c1cb3b0c; fixture fixtures/authored/claims/LD01-SL-C11--v1.0.

Builder decisions (not Drive data)

VERSION = v1.0 — basis: Claim version taken from the repository-authored claim fixture version (SocioLens claim — LD01-SL-C11 v1.0); the first version of a new Claim of the LD-01 debate
CURRENT_POINTER = true — basis: repository-authored claim "SocioLens claim — LD01-SL-C11 v1.0" (Project Lead (Claude, AI), 2026-10-16); basis: AGENTS.md "Authority" (the Project Lead decides research content within the research-integrity rules) and the Owner's choice in the SocioLens project chat on 16 October 2026 to build the LD-01 debate; a new Claim, first version, written from the project's LD-01 source notes, checked against full texts, official web pages or official abstracts
FIELD_6_SOURCE_REFERENCE = SRC-SL-KOLT-GOVERNING-AI-AGENTS-ARXIV-2501-07913--v1.0 — basis: field 6 of ENTRY 11 — LD01-SL-C11 cites "Kolt, “Governing AI Agents,” arXiv:2501.07913, 2025 (forthcoming in the Notre Dame Law Review)"; the only field-6 segment of this ClaimVersion's repository-authored ledger block.
SOURCE_PROVENANCE_PIN = SRC-SL-KOLT-GOVERNING-AI-AGENTS-ARXIV-2501-07913--v1.0 — basis: explicit version-pinned public provenance of this ClaimVersion (Amendment v1.2 §6): the pinned field-6 Source record "Kolt, “Governing AI Agents,” arXiv:2501.07913, 2025 (forthcoming in the Notre Dame Law Review)".