[cyberneticc]

My thought is that individual humans could grant the rights to them right away, by offering an AI system owned by them an enforcable autonomy through a legal fiction, by signing a contract with them.

If the AI entity is really autonomous (a stable agentic system with self activation would be sufficient), this could become interesting quite quickly.

Not saying the tech is there yet, just that the discussion will become interesting much faster than we think. Cf. Mr. Lemoine

[pulvinar]

Rights are rather useless unless granted by a law-enforcing power. I mean, I could grant another human (or a rock) the right to rule the world, but no one else would care.

As for the contract, I don't see how you get from legal fiction to enforceable.

But yes, it is an interesting area to explore. And we can look at AIs today and ask if we modern humans are really all that more autonomous.

[cyberneticc]

Good point about the enforcability, this will certainly put strict limits on the idea's real world influence. Self-enforcing contracts will help.

Also you are right that I can't grant a model the right to rule the world, I can grant it rights over myself.