TITLE:
Governing the Financialization of Human Intent in the Shift from Privacy to Cognitive Sovereignty
AUTHORS:
Regina Linden Ruaro, Pedro Arthur Capelari de Lucena
KEYWORDS:
Intention Economy, LLMs, Algorithmic Regulation, Digital Free Will, Artificial Intelligence
JOURNAL NAME:
Beijing Law Review,
Vol.17 No.3,
September
18,
2026
ABSTRACT: This article investigates the economic obsolescence of traditional data protection frameworks in the context of generative systems. It argues that Large Language Models (LLMs) have rendered the doctrine of informed consent functionally obsolete. The intention economy transitions from the attention economy to programmatic influence markets, systematically financialising human cognition. The study demonstrates how algorithmic architectures mine implicit brain data. They extract pre-conscious vulnerabilities and transient mental states to transform the formation of human will into a highly tradable asset class. Through an analysis intersecting regulatory theory, neuroscience, and market dynamics, the text exposes the structural inadequacies of the Brazilian legal ecosystem. Instruments such as the General Data Protection Law (LGPD) and the proposed AI Bill (PL 2338/2023) remain anchored in retrospective, deterministic paradigms. These frameworks fail to govern generative inferences. Ultimately, protecting cognitive sovereignty requires abandoning the procedural formalism of individual consent. Legal frameworks must prioritize structural market interventions to regulate the algorithmic manipulation of subjectivity as an autonomous economic frontier.