Automated Societies Without Humans: A Step Forward, But Still Insufficient
The officialism has given in to pressure from citizen organizations and will modify the project of the Law of Societies to require at least one physical or legal person responsible for automated societies, but NGOs consider it an insufficient advance.
The project of the Law of Societies, which promotes companies managed by artificial intelligence, has generated concern among organizations of human rights and environmental movements due to its social impact and on ecosystems. Recently, the officialism announced that it will modify the project to require that automated societies have at least one physical or legal person responsible, thus discarding the possibility of societies operating in an absolutely autonomous manner, without any identifiable human being behind.
Background
The announcement was made by Senator Patricia Bullrich, head of the officialist bloc, in a meeting of the Senate committees that deal with this project of law. Bullrich indicated that this modification aims to guarantee greater legal security and avoid that responsibility "does not fall into nothing" in the face of eventual damage caused by these companies. This announcement directly collects the central objection of a group of NGOs that sent a document to the senators with a series of objections titled "Who responds? Societies without responsibles".
Concerns and Criticisms
The NGOs, including the Argentine chapter of the think tank Common, the civil association Géneras, the environmental NGO Taller Ecologista, and the Catholic movement Salus Terrae, criticized the project of the Minister of Deregulation and State Transformation, Federico Sturzenegger, denouncing the absence of a clear mechanism to attribute personal responsibility when a society operates through autonomous systems. The NGOs also expressed concern about the impact of the Law of Societies, combined with the Super RIGI project, which could create a legal framework that disproportionately benefits large technological companies, with enormous social and environmental costs.
Demands and Next Steps
The NGOs indicated that the officialism's recognition that there cannot be a society without someone behind it is an important step, but it does not resolve the underlying problem: a digital file that still does not require information about the patrimonial or final beneficiary. Without this, real traceability remains weak, with or without human responsibility in the papers. The NGOs will continue to follow the final drafting of the text, requesting that the requirement of human responsibility be applied clearly, that an effective regime of identification of the final beneficiary be incorporated, and that any damage caused by autonomous systems always falls under Argentine jurisdiction, without exception linked to the Super RIGI.
