By Leila Miller and Kenrick Cai

BUENOS AIRES, July 3 (Reuters) - Argentine President Javier Milei generated both excitement and fear last month when he announced a congressional bill to create "non-human corporations" run by AI, but the companies would actually require human involvement.

Milei described in a Financial Times op-ed piece a new type of company that could run without human employees, in ‌which AI agents or robots would "exercise independent judgment in unpredictable environments." Argentina would become the first country to pass legislation creating a category for companies run by AI, several legal experts ‌said.

"We are open for business," Milei declared, sparking criticism from Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari, who warned giving AI too much power may reduce corporate accountability.

But the reality is less revolutionary, corporate attorneys said. The "automated company" introduced in the proposed reform, part of a comprehensive ​bill seeking to modernize and cut bureaucracy in corporate law, would be required to have a human administrator to oversee operations.

The bill also allows a company's administration to use AI for decision-making without exempting the administrators from supervising the outcome.

It would be "too wild a first step to dispense with human agency entirely," said Lawrence Cunningham, director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware. Still, Cunningham called Milei's proposal bold.

"We're not changing the world here so much as we're recognizing that you might run a business without any HR," he said. "It's the beginning of something."

Diego Duprat, a law professor and co-author of the bill, said automated companies already ‌exist in some forms, referring to AI-supported cashier-less supermarkets.

The company would be liable ⁠for damages caused by AI or algorithmic systems, the bill states.

A representative for the office of the presidential spokesperson said that there are currently no companies or commitments of investment that are connected to the bill.

"What is happening is that we are proposing something innovative, aimed at making Argentina an attractive jurisdiction for the establishment ⁠of automated companies," the representative said in a statement. "This project is key to creating better conditions for attracting investment."

Milei, who has brought inflation down sharply and sought to attract foreign investors with incentives, has repeatedly pitched Argentina as a future AI hub, highlighting Patagonia's cold weather and energy supply as ideal for data centers. OpenAI and Sur Energy announced plans in October for a data center with an investment of up to $25 billion.