AI and the Law

A Collection in Honor of Magnifica Humanitas

On May 25, the Holy See will release Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, which will address “preserving the human person in the age of artificial intelligence.” In honor of the occasion, we have collected here all previous writings from The New Digest on the relationship between artificial intelligence and the law — that is, the law rightly understood. We hope this provides useful perspectives on the encyclical and its legal implications. Enjoy!

(1) Congress.AI: A Debate

TND editor Prof. Jeremy Christiansen provoked a multi-faceted debate by posing the question whether legislation produced by AI would count as “law” - in particular, whether legislation so produced would count as an “ordinance of reason.” Fellow TND editor Rafael de Arizaga wrote a response, as did a set of recent Harvard Law graduates and a computer scientist — Messrs. Kimo Gandall, Jack Kieffaber and Kenny McLaren. Prof. Christiansen then wrote a reply. We collect all these together in the order described.

(2) Judge.AI

On the judicial side, Mr. Keiffaber has argued in our pages — explicating a concurrence by Judge Kevin Newsom of the Eleventh Circuit — that a textualist must necessarily approve of “Judge.AI,” the attempt to substitute artificial intelligence in place of human judgment in the interpretation and application of statutes. If one finds that conclusion unacceptable, Keiffaber argues, then one must necessarily reject textualism.

(3) Corpus Linguistics and AI

Finally, Mr. Matias Mayesh, a recent Harvard Law graduate, and Mr. Keiffaber argued in our pages that so-called “corpus linguistics” is just an incomplete step towards Judge.AI — and hence towards the reductio ad absurdum that afflicts the latter.