Milei defends unregulated AI push after warning from historian Yuval Noah Harari

President Javier Milei on Monday responded to Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari, who criticised a recent column by the Argentine leader in the Financial Times pitching his nation as a new frontier for the development of Artificial Intelligence. 

Harari, author of the bestselling book Sapiens, took task with Milei's proposal to grant legal personhood to corporations operated by AI, writing it could be dangerous,.

Also writing in the FT, Harari answered Milei in a column published Monday titled "We should not grant legal personhood to AI agents," warning of the risks of recognising corporations controlled by non-human agents as legal entities.

The author argued that granting legal status to corporations run by non-human agents would amount to handing them "a master key" to gain dangerous access to financial, economic and political systems.

"Countries that grant legal personhood to AIs risk becoming something for which the historical record offers no analogy: not a company-state, but an AI-state, a country whose inhabitants could be governed by non-human corporations," Harari wrote.

The historian – whose books including Nexus and Homo Deus explore the history of information and the future of humanity –warned that such a model could fundamentally alter the relationship between citizens, governments and technology.

Milei thanked the historian on X for "taking part in this fascinating and momentous debate" and argued that humanity must build a framework that allows it to harness the opportunities presented by AI.

"I'm already preparing my response to see whether we can dispel his fears about the path I proposed last week!" he added.

The exchange began last Thursday when Milei published an article in the British newspaper titled "Argentina invites AI to break free," in which he announced plans to promote legislation allowing for the creation of "non-human corporations" operated by AI agents and robots.

Milei pledged to allow AI to develop "without the deadly hand of premature and poorly understood regulation."

In late May, Milei sent Congress a draft new Companies Law that includes provisions for the creation of "automated companies," capable of operating entirely autonomously through algorithms or AI systems without the need for human employees.

The bill also provides for the creation of DAOs (Decentralised Autonomous Organisations), which can operate fully or partially autonomously and record their transactions on blockchain networks.

– TIMES/AFP