Lost in the Shell: Mind, Body, Identity and the Technology of Information

What happens to law when the human body becomes replicable, the mind readable, and identity programmable?

This book investigates how artificial intelligence, neurotechnology, and synthetic biology are dismantling the legal foundations of personhood. From biometric doubles and cognitive extraction to bodyoids - human bodies grown without consciousness - the author reveals how legal categories struggle to keep pace with technological realities.

Blending legal theory, philosophy, and science, the book exposes a profound crisis: law no longer knows what a ’person’ is. This timely and provocative work is essential for scholars in law, bioethics, and technology studies seeking to understand how the post-human era challenges the very structure of the legal order. The future is no longer science fiction. It is a legal vacuum.

The book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of law, public policy, AI, and ethics. It will also be a handy guide for practicing lawyers.

Andrea Monti is an Italian lawyer, journalist, and academic, whose expertise ranges from biotechnology to privacy and high-tech law.