Acceso usuarios
Erica Ivana Alegre Saavedra
El artículo analiza cómo la irrupción de la inteligencia artificial (IA) y las neurotecnologías (NT) cuestiona las bases del derecho constitucional contemporáneo, núcleo de la tutela de los derechos fundamentales. La pregunta que lo guía es: ¿cómo repensar el constitucionalismo en un escenario donde la agencia no se restringe al sujeto humano, sino que se distribuye entre humanos, tecnologías y ecosistemas? La hipótesis sostiene que no basta con añadir nuevos derechos a marcos antropocéntricos preexistentes, sino que es preciso transformar la gramática constitucional en un entramado relacional y de agencia distribuida, donde la dignidad se conciba como fenómeno intersubjetivo y más-que-humano.
Metodológicamente, se adopta un enfoque crítico-interpretativo que combina teoría constitucional, teoría crítica de las Relaciones Internacionales y estudios posthumanistas. El corpus de análisis se organiza en constelaciones conceptuales —soberanía y plataformas; riesgo y prevención; diseño y garantías; cognición y autonomía— que permiten poner en diálogo tradiciones jurídicas con debates sobre agencia distribuida, cuidado y epistemologías del Sur.
El texto se estructura en tres movimientos. En primer lugar, identifica los límites empíricos, normativos y democráticos del constitucionalismo clásico ante la globalización digital y la expansión de actores privados. En segundo lugar, examina el impacto de la IA y las NT en la protección de derechos fundamentales, a través de casos concretos: el debate sobre la constitucionalización de los neuroderechos en Chile, el sistema RISCANVI en Cataluña y el AI Act europeo. Estos ejemplos permiten visibilizar riesgos como la opacidad algorítmica, la pre-criminalización tecnocientífica y la vigilancia cognitiva, que amenazan garantías procesales y principios democráticos básicos. Finalmente, se propone un marco de constitucionalismo postantropocéntrico, relacional y rizomático, que incorpora la ética del cuidado, el feminismo interseccional y las epistemologías del Sur como principios para gestionar interdependencias sociotécnicas sin abdicar de la tutela de derechos. El artículo aporta cuatro contribuciones principales: (1) visibiliza los límites estructurales del constitucionalismo clásico; (2) introduce la noción de dignidad relacional y el riesgo de humillación algorítmica como pruebas de constitucionalidad; (3) traduce categorías posthumanistas en criterios jurídicos operativos, como la anticipación benigna y la contestabilidad por diseño; y (4) esboza un modelo de soberanía relacional capaz de sostener legitimidad democrática en redes multinivel de gobernanza. En pocas palabras, se argumenta que la complejidad no debe entenderse como una amenaza, sino como la oportunidad para reinventar el constitucionalismo como práctica de cuidado y traducción en un mundo interdependiente.
This article examines how the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and neurotechnologies (NT) unset-tles the foundations of contemporary constitutional law. The central question is straightforward: how can constitutionalism be rethought when agency is no longer restricted to human subjects but is distributed across humans, technologies, and ecosystems? The paper argues that adding new rights to an anthro-pocentric and hierarchical framework is insufficient. Instead, constitutionalism should be reconceived as a relational and distributed network that protects dignity as an intersubjective good and organizes dem-ocratic legitimacy under conditions of technological interdependence. In this sense, neurorights are not mere individual safeguards added to a pre-existing catalogue; they work as legal mechanisms oriented to preserve cognitive integrity and shared emotional life in highly technologized environments.The argument unfolds in three movements. First, it maps the limits of classical constitutionalism in the face of the post-anthropocentric turn. Second, it examines how AI and NT reshape the protection of fundamental rights through concrete cases (Chile’s debate of constitutionalization of neurorights, the RISCANVI risk assessment system in Catalonia, and the EU AI Act). Third, it proposes a conceptual framework for a post-anthropocentric constitutionalism grounded in relational dignity, care, and interde-pendence, with implications for democratic legitimacy and global governance.The paper has three aims: (1) to identify empirical, normative, and democratic limits of classical consti-tutionalism in the context of AI and NT; (2) to show how current deployments of AI and NT—especially automated decision-making and cognitive surveillance—challenge core guarantees such as due process, non-discrimination, and presumption of innocence; and (3) to outline an alternative framework in which constitutional law operates as governance of complexity rather than as a device of social control, placing guarantees “upstream” in the design and oversight of socio-technical systems.Methodologically, the paper follows a critical-interpretive approach. Concepts are treated not as neutral descriptors but as instruments that shape the field they describe. The analysis combines close reading of legal and political theory with selective engagement of science and technology studies and posthuman-ist literature. It proceeds through iterative comparison across “conceptual constellations” (sovereignty/platforms; risk/prevention; design/guarantees; cognition/autonomy), seeking productive friction rath-er than neat synthesis. This comparison is framed as a translation practice: on the one hand, notions such as assemblage, distributed agency, and situated knowledge are rendered into an operational legal vocabulary; on the other, legal categories like accountability, publicity, and prohibitions serve as tests for the normative relevance of posthumanist insights. The paper declares its intention to enable debate rather than to close it: the goal is to offer criteria and language that make new problems visible, articu-late limits, and suggest feasible directions.The article is organized into three main sections. The first section traces the legacies and current limits of classical constitutionalism. It highlights three fronts of strain: an empirical limit (loss of territorial control and externalization of decision-making to private infrastructures); a normative limit (anthropocentric categories that exclude non-human agencies and rigidify identities); and a democratic limit (opaque chains of justification that undermine publicity and contestability). The section argues that these limits call for reimagining constitutional law as management of complexity, not for abandoning its role of con-straining power.The second section turns to AI and NT. It analyzes automated decision-making in criminal justice and public administration, focusing on how black-box models and risk scoring can erode due process and hinder meaningful explanation and contestability. It uses RISCANVI in Catalonia as a case of tension between standardization and individualization, as well as a locus where proxies for class or ethnicity may re-import discrimination under technical guise. The section also examines neurotechnologies and the proposal of neurorights, with Chile’s debate of constitutional reform as a salient example. It stresses that cognitive surveillance and predictive profiling risk normalizing “pre-criminalization,” shifting crimi-nal rationality from ex post culpability to ex ante dangerousness. Here, the paper introduces a guiding question that functions as a normative test: can AI humiliate? If dignity is relational, harm includes degradation and misrecognition produced by design choices—stigmatizing labels, infantilizing surveillance, or scoring systems that diminish perceived agency. The paper argues that “algorithmic humiliation” is constitutionally relevant and requires ex ante safeguards (transparency, contestability, targeted prohi-bitions) and effective ex post remedies. Across these issues, the section shows how inequality operates structurally and warns against a punitive drift that sees individuals but overlooks causal networks.The third section outlines a framework for constitutionalism as governance of complexity. It contrasts two imaginaries: control (certainty, predictability, clear structures but with rigidity, exclusion, and epis-temic violence) and complexity management (flexibility, inclusion, adaptability but with uncertainty and potential manipulation). The article does not reject control wholesale; rather, it argues that in highly interdependent contexts, promises of total certainty become costly illusions. It proposes care as an institutional principle—neither a private virtue nor a gender stereotype—structuring the fair distribu-tion of technological burdens and benefits, the regulation of attention economies, and the protection of cognitive liberty. It also affirms inter-sectional analysis as a condition for effective guarantees and calls for plural, situated knowledge in evaluation processes. Finally, it introduces the idea of a rhizomatic constitutional structure: not a closed hierarchy of sources and competences, but a network of connec-tions that allows multiple routes between principles, procedures, and guarantees. The rhizome does not dissolve normativity; it redistributes it to enable redundancy, circulation, and situated reconfiguration of democratic control.The paper offers four contributions. First, it makes visible the triad of limits (empirical, normative, democratic) affecting classical constitutionalism under AI/NT conditions. Second, it reframes dignity as a relational quality and introduces “algorithmic humiliation” as a constitutional risk and a practical test for regulatory design. Third, it translates posthumanist insights into actionable legal criteria—benign anticipation, care as an institutional principle, upstream guarantees, and contestability by design—with-out abandoning constitutional rigor. Fourth, it sketches a rhizomatic architecture for constitutional law capable of coordinating multi-level governance and sustaining democratic legitimacy in socio-technical assemblages. The paper does not aim to deliver final solutions. Its purpose is to open a structured dis-cussion and provide a shared language to navigate concrete conflicts. The approach is conceptual and normative. Its case references are illustrative, chosen to show tensions and opportunities across nation-al, regional, and global levels. For constitutional law, the main implication is a shift from defending boundaries ex post to governing in-terdependencies ex ante and throughout the life cycle of systems. For policy, it suggests moving resourc-es from punitive prevention to infrastructural safeguards, public oversight, and accessible remedies. For global governance, it underscores that a post-anthropocentric constitutionalism is not an internal State matter: it is a precondition for any viable, democratic multilateralism in a world shaped by platforms, standards, and opaque infrastructures. Complexity is not the problem—it is part of the solution. Consti-tutional law should not obsess over control, but learn to translate differences into coexistence without diluting guarantees. Predictive systems must serve freedom, not replace it.
