Chile could turn into the first country that has a law that protects neurorights

The Commission of Challenges of the Future of the Senate presented two Law Projects that aim to protect people’s privacy against AI.

Protecting mental privacy and the right to individual identity of men and women in the face of the advances of artificial intelligence. This is the objective of two bills that were presented today at an online conference in which national and foreign authorities and specialists participated.

In recent years, neurotechnologies have experienced accelerated progress that brings benefits and downsides. It is for this reason that scientists, experts and thinkers have been reflecting on ethical limits and raising the need to recognize and protect a new type of rights: the “neuro-rights”.

Through an international online conference, the first two legislative initiatives in the world were presented, which will enter the Chilean Senate and establish ethical legislations that protect the autonomy and free will of the brain of each of the inhabitants of the planet.

The president of the Senate, Adriana Muñoz, explained that “it is proposed to promote the recognition and protection of neuro-rights, through a constitutional reform project and a bill (…) that protect mental privacy and the right to the individual identity of men and women in the face of the significant and promising, but also disturbing, advances of artificial intelligence.”

Senator Guido Girardi, the president of the Future Challenges Commission of the Chilean Senate, and the Spanish neuroscientist, Rafael Yuste, coordinator of the BRAIN project that seeks to decipher the wiring of the human brain, are the main drivers of this work and were also present.

Yuste stressed that these initiatives “define history for the first time. Mental identity as a right that cannot be manipulated and any intervention, even if it is for health reasons, must be legally regulated.” If they are approved, the Chilean Constitution will be a pioneer in this matter and the projects will be a model to be followed throughout the world, so today the UN, the OECD, UNESCO and neurotechnology companies of all kinds are watching this launch with magnifying glass,” says the neuroscientist.

Senator Girardi expressed his pride “for what has been achieved by this effort of the Future Challenges Commission. The Congress of the Future was created to unite politics and science” and added that it was at one of these scientific outreach meetings, “where we met Rafael Yuste and he claimed that, just like the Food Labeling Law was adopted in many countries, we could also create the necessary regulations to regulate that the advances of Science and Technology (S&T) will benefit and not harm human beings.”

Girardi stressed that this project was prepared by Chilean parliamentarians and scientists in cojunction with 25 relevant neuroscientists from around the world who represent much broader groups, because protecting the neuro-rights and mind is a priority task.

The High Representative of the UN Civilizations Alliance, Miguel Moratinos, said that “the initiative of the Senate Chile should be, not only applauded and supported, but also it should serve as a model to be followed by other countries of the world and among all achieve the objective of incorporating these neuro-rights into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights through mechanisms or protocols that can adhere to or complement the current articles and commitments ”.

In the online conference, scientists, politicians and members of the private sector participated, such as the president of the Chilean Academy of Sciences, Cecilia Hidalgo; the President of the University of Chile, Ennio Vivaldi; the President of the Catholic University, Ignacio Sánchez; the Secretary of State for Digitalization and AI of Spain, Carmen Artigas; the Director of Investigation of IBM, Darío Gil; the President of the Interparliamentary Union, Gabriela Cuevas, and the lawyer Ciro Colombara.