{"text":[[{"start":7.25,"text":"The writer is president of Argentina"}],[{"start":10.25,"text":"On March 20 1602, the founding of the Dutch East India Company gave the world the limited liability company — and unleashed capitalism’s full potential. Only when law placed a ceiling on risk did capital deploy with genuine force. The industrial revolution ignited some years later was made complete not by engineering, but by Dutch corporate law. The machine and the legal entity were, together, the double helix of modern prosperity."}],[{"start":37.95,"text":"Since then, global GDP has increased more than 200 times, income per capita has risen 15-fold, and population has multiplied by 15. The limited liability company certainly deserves a place among the 10 most consequential inventions in history. "}],[{"start":54.150000000000006,"text":"The concept did not go unchallenged. As late as 1824, critics wrote that limited liability let wealthy men “offer a portion of their excesses for the formation of a company, to play with that excess . . . and then, should the funds prove insufficient to answer all demands, to retire into the security of their unhazarded fortune, and leave the bait to be devoured by the poor deceived fish.” "}],[{"start":78.5,"text":"This debate has now resurfaced — in a new guise. A 2023 US district court ruling in Sarcuni vs bZx DAO classified blockchain-based decentralised autonomous organisations (the closest approximation we have to a company operated by autonomous algorithmic action) as a general partnership, thereby stripping members of limited liability protections. As we enter into a new era of technology this is precisely the wrong legal architecture."}],[{"start":106.35,"text":"The logic of 1602 still applies today. Companies run by new technologies such as AI agents require the same legal framework that has underpinned capitalism for over four centuries, one suitable for development and experimentation. "}],[{"start":121.6,"text":"At the beginning of the industrial revolution, Adam Smith illustrated the potential of technology and economies of scale in his celebrated recollection of the pin factory. And, 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. "}],[{"start":144.5,"text":"It is for this reason that my government last week submitted legislation to Congress establishing a dedicated legal framework for the deployment of AI. This rests on three pillars."}],[{"start":154.9,"text":"First, a commitment to keep AI unregulated so that it is free to be developed without the deadly hand of premature and poorly understood regulation."}],[{"start":164.15,"text":"Second, the creation of a new corporate category in Argentine law: the non-human corporation. These are entities operated by AI agents or robots. Where these systems exercise independent judgment in unpredictable environments — as they must, if they are to be genuinely useful — their actions entail real risks. Limited liability is not a luxury for such entities; it is a precondition for their existence. Human shareholders may participate, but are not required."}],[{"start":192.45000000000002,"text":"Third, a competitive fiscal environment. These corporations will benefit from a low corporate tax rate, and shareholders can select the corporate governance law of their choosing. Final beneficiaries will have to be disclosed — Argentina has no interest in becoming a haven for illicit capital — but for all legitimate commercial activity our framework will offer unmatched terms."}],[{"start":213.50000000000003,"text":"This is also, it should be said, an invitation. "}],[{"start":217.50000000000003,"text":"Argentina has transformed over the past two years. Inflation, once an existential threat, has been brought to heel — even though the work is not yet finished. A fiscal surplus, combined with the world’s most sweeping deregulation programme, has returned the economy to a growth trajectory after 15 years of stagnation. Investments are flowing into our world-class energy and mining resources, in a region of geopolitical stability that is increasingly rare. "}],[{"start":245.50000000000003,"text":"For too long, Argentina constructed a labyrinth of restrictions that reduced what was one of the world’s wealthiest nations to relative poverty. Fortunately, we are changing this. In 2024 and 2025, the country advanced 20 positions in the Heritage Foundation’s Economic Freedom Index — the largest improvement of any nation in both years."}],[{"start":267.90000000000003,"text":"We are open for business. In the spirit of the Dutch merchants who made Amsterdam the financial capital of the 17th century, we intend to offer the most attractive legal and fiscal environment for the AI companies that will define the 21st. Let Buenos Aires become for AI what Amsterdam was for the age of sail — the place where the legal imagination caught up with the technological moment, and the world was changed."}],[{"start":294.65000000000003,"text":"Federico Sturzenegger, minister of deregulation and state reform, contributed to this article"}],[{"start":null,"text":"