AI & Law: Law As Code

Casting the law as though it was programming code

by Dr. Lance B. Eliot

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Key briefing points about this article:

• There is a great deal of effort aiming toward “law as code” (it is headline-making)
• The gist is to somehow convert laws into programming code, allowing for digital usage
• This is much more than simply textual aspects and requires runnable capacities too
• A tremendous stumbling block is the inherent semantic indeterminism of the law
• Suggestions that we change our laws to be amenable to coding are brazen and unlikely

Introduction

Law as code.

You are likely to see references to the popular phrase “law as code” in nearly any legal industry newspaper or social media posting that foretells the future of the law. Generally, the notion underlying law as code is that we ought to embody the law into some form of computer program coding and thus we will more readily be able to utilize and leverage the law via digital capabilities.