Milei Proposes Non-Human Corporations for AI

In a Financial Times op-ed titled "Argentina invites AI to free itself" published June 3, President Javier Milei and Deregulation Minister Federico Sturzenegger outlined a three-pillar proposal to reposition Argentina as an attractive jurisdiction for AI development (Financial Times via Batimes; Buenos Aires Herald; PYMNTS). The three pillars are a stated commitment to keep AI unregulated, creation of a new corporate category labelled the "non-human corporation" or "sociedad automatizada", and a low corporate tax environment.

The government submitted draft legislation to Congress on May 29, amending Argentina's general corporations law (Law 19.550, in force since 1972), per Infobae and LA NACION reporting. The bill would recognise companies operated autonomously by algorithms or AI agents, grant them legal personality and limited liability, and accommodate DAO-style entities that record operations on blockchain. Human shareholders may participate but are not required, and beneficial-owner disclosure would be mandatory (Infobae; PYMNTS).

The op-ed includes a direct quote: "As much as the industrial revolution freed us from the constraints of the human muscle, AI will free us from the constraints of the human brain, pushing productivity beyond our wildest dreams," and the closing pitch: "We are open for business" (Batimes; Futurism). Milei frames Buenos Aires as potentially becoming "for AI what Amsterdam was for the age of sail," comparing the moment to the 1602 founding of the Dutch East India Company (Buenos Aires Herald; Futurism).

The draft legislation covers two related categories: "sociedades automatizadas" (companies operating entirely via algorithms or AI) and entities that are fully or partially autonomous and use blockchain tokens to record operations - effectively DAO-style structures (Infobae). The bill would modernise the 1972 corporate code by explicitly including autonomous digital entities and cites precedent material such as the 2023 Sarcuni v. bZx DAO case (PYMNTS). Intellectual genesis of the proposal is attributed to Emiliano Kargieman (co-founder of Sur Energy, an Argentine company with an OpenAI data-centre partnership), who published a Substack essay on "Autonomous Legal Entities." Kargieman told LA NACION his involvement was "purely intellectual, not political" - and his original framework included kill-switches, human oversight committees, and insurance requirements, none of which appeared in the final draft (LA NACION).

The proposal prompted a notable international exchange. Yuval Noah Harari published a counter op-ed in the Financial Times warning that AI corporations risk becoming "expert in regulatory arbitrage and legal loopholes" and that "the maximum sanction that deters human executives - prison - is irrelevant to AI." Harari warned that Argentina could become a "Batavia" rather than an Amsterdam - referencing the Dutch East India Company's colonial port in modern Indonesia, where a state-company governed for decades (LA NACION; Buenos Aires Herald). Milei replied to Harari on X, writing in part: "We are at the dawn of a new era... I am preparing my response to see if we can address your fears" (LA NACION).

Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI, endorsed Harari's concern on X: "Agreed. We have to be very careful about this," and cited his recently published Nature article arguing that AI agents should have "no more rights or freedoms than a laptop computer" and that developers "must actively eliminate the illusion of consciousness from our products" (LA NACION).

Argentine legal experts quoted in coverage raised accountability concerns: if the entity's assets are the only recoverable target, and no human faces criminal exposure, fraud prevention becomes structurally difficult (Buenos Aires Herald; LA NACION).

Editorial analysis: Monitor the legislative process in Argentina for amendments, formal replies from major tech firms, and any international regulatory responses. Key open questions include how beneficial-owner disclosure and liability-channelling rules will be operationalised, and whether the Kargieman-proposed kill-switch safeguards re-enter the legislation at committee stage.