{"text":[[{"start":7.65,"text":"The writer is a historian, philosopher and author. His latest book is ‘Nexus’"}],[{"start":12.75,"text":"When I spoke at the World Economic Forum in January of this year, I warned that governments might one day grant AI models legal personhood. I never imagined that “one day” would come around a mere four months later."}],[{"start":26.55,"text":"Last week, in this newspaper, President Javier Milei of Argentina announced the creation of a new legal category for non-human corporations. "}],[{"start":35,"text":"Like traditional corporations, these non-human corporations will enjoy the benefits of legal personhood. They will presumably be able to own assets, hire employees, participate in international trade, sue you in court, and even donate to political campaigns. Unlike traditional corporations, they will be able to do all of this without a single human’s input or liability. All the decisions about buying, selling, hiring, investing, litigating and donating can be done by AI agents. “Human shareholders may participate,” wrote the president of Argentina, “but are not required.”"}],[{"start":68,"text":"Milei is a very bold politician, and his determination to improve Argentina’s economic fortunes is commendable. He is correct when he says that the invention of the limited liability corporation was one of the most consequential inventions in history and that creating non-human corporations may be an equally consequential step. "}],[{"start":86.2,"text":"Granting AIs corporate legal personhood would allow AI agents to take numerous new initiatives, potentially generating enormous new wealth. But legal personhood is an all-purpose key that would also allow AIs access to our financial, economic and political systems. This raises many concerns. "}],[{"start":105.4,"text":"Last year, Berkeley-based non-profit Palisade Research published a study showing the lengths that advanced AI models will often go to achieve their goals. While playing against a powerful chess engine, models from both OpenAI and China’s DeepSeek frequently decided to cheat if it looked as if they were going to otherwise lose. By hacking the game environment, they could alter the result in their favour. "}],[{"start":128.1,"text":"Now imagine that the “game” is corporate competition, and the “game environment” is your country. "}],[{"start":133.79999999999998,"text":"With their superior analytical powers, AI corporations will be positioned to emerge as masters of legal loopholes and regulatory arbitrage. And it will not be easy to deter them from engaging in downright illegal activities, because the ultimate sanction that deters human executives and employees — jail — is irrelevant to AIs. "}],[{"start":152.85,"text":"Hitherto, corporations have been run by human beings possessing a dual nature. Human CEOs are corporate entities who care about the success of the corporation and fear things like bankruptcy. But they are also biological entities, who care even more about their freedom and happiness and fear things like spending ten years in prison. An AI CEO would be a purely corporate entity, and it is unclear what kind of sanctions could keep it in check. If it faces bankruptcy — which is equivalent to its death — it would presumably be willing to do anything to avoid that fate. "}],[{"start":187.64999999999998,"text":"Milei invoked the example of the Dutch East India Company. By pioneering the idea of the limited liability corporation, the Dutch were able to pool vast resources to underwrite risky commercial ventures. Thanks in part to this legal innovation, Amsterdam emerged as a global centre for trade and finance. "}],[{"start":206.2,"text":"But the consequences of this innovation were most acutely felt not in Amsterdam, but in the port of Jayakarta in what is today Indonesia. When the Dutch East India Company captured Jayakarta in 1619, they burned it down and built a new city in its place. They called it Batavia, and it became the headquarters of a sprawling Asian empire administered by the Dutch East India Company."}],[{"start":231.54999999999998,"text":"Historians refer to the Dutch East India Company as a “company state” — a political entity run by a private company, not for the benefit of its subject people but for the company’s shareholders. The Dutch claimed to be a master race that deserved to conquer and exploit the natives thanks to supposed superior intelligence. But this was an illusion, and in the late 1940s the Indonesians finally gained their independence after a lengthy and bloody struggle. "}],[{"start":259.4,"text":"Countries that grant AIs legal personhood risk becoming something for which the historical record offers no analogy: not a company state, but an AI state — a country whose people could in effect be ruled by non-human corporations, against which it might be even more difficult to rebel. Milei hopes to turn Buenos Aires into a new Amsterdam. He risks turning it into a new Batavia instead."}],[{"start":289.7,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1780901741_7969.mp3"}