[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.