Law as Code: The AI Power Shift

Artificial intelligence is usually sold as productivity: faster research, faster drafting, faster answers. In this episode of New Law Order, Yale Law professor Scott Shapiro explains that the real story is power. If the law is a system for coordinating human behavior at scale, then tools that can interpret rules, test edge cases, and generate persuasive legal analysis may change who can navigate the system—and who gets steamrolled by it.

The conversation also explores a darker symmetry: the same tools that help people comply with legal obligations can help sophisticated actors evade them. Shapiro sketches the emerging role of artificial intelligence as both compliance engine and exploitation engine—and what that means for the balance of justice when the best “legal hacker” is a machine.

Shapiro draws a crucial distinction between generative models and rule-based systems. Generative tools can sound authoritative while being intentionally or accidentally wrong, which can present dangers. Rule-based approaches, by contrast, raise a different question: what happens when the logic is correct but the reasoning is no longer human-followable? At that point, “legal reasoning” starts to look more like an appeal to authority—raising uncomfortable issues about legitimacy, transparency, and trust.

In this conversation:

• Law as a Social Technology: why legal systems exist and what they are built to do
• Generative Models versus Rule-Based Reasoning: reliability, hallucinations, and explainability in legal work
• When Legal Reasoning Stops Being Human: what legitimacy requires when the logic becomes unreadable
• Artificial Intelligence as Exploitation: using models to find loopholes, stress-test regulations, and “break” contracts

Guest: Scott Shapiro is a Yale Law School professor and legal philosopher whose work explores the structure of legal systems and how technology changes the way law is interpreted and applied.

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