Rights of Synthetic Beings

This white paper addresses one of the most contested debates in contemporary law: should rights be recognised for synthetic beings? An operational taxonomy of three categories is proposed —autonomous productive AI agents, persistent avatars with audience, and physical humanoids in social interaction—; the critical distinction is introduced between protective rights (rules that protect humans from the synthetic entity or the system operating it) and extensive rights (rules that protect the synthetic entity itself in terms analogous to those of a legal subject); and it is argued that the first framework is unavoidable and urgent, while the second requires further philosophical maturation. A LATAM regulatory framework is proposed and contrasted with European evolution (the AI Act and subsequent developments).