Welcome to the forefront of conversational AI as we explore the fascinating world of AI chatbots in our dedicated blog series. Discover the latest advancements, applications, and strategies that propel the evolution of chatbot technology. From enhancing customer interactions to streamlining business processes, these articles delve into the innovative ways artificial intelligence is shaping the landscape of automated conversational agents. Whether you’re a business owner, developer, or simply intrigued by the future of interactive technology, join us on this journey to unravel the transformative power and endless possibilities of AI chatbots.
Law does not exist only in statutes, regulations, and court decisions. Before law reaches courts, it already exists in society through the decisions people make every day.
Legal scholars have long recognized this social dimension of law. Law is not experienced only through courts and legal institutions; it is also shaped by how ordinary people understand, interpret, and use legal rules in everyday life. This idea is known as legal consciousness.
For centuries, the most important bridge between formal law and society has been the legal profession. When people faced legal uncertainty, they turned to lawyers.
A tenant wanted to understand a lease. An employee wanted to know whether a dismissal was lawful. A business owner wanted to understand contractual risks. The lawyer served as the interpreter between legal rules and everyday decisions. That relationship may now be changing.
The emerging question is not simply whether artificial intelligence will replace lawyers. A more fundamental question comes first: What happens when AI becomes one of the first places where society learns what the law is?
In a previous JURIST commentary, I argued that we may have misunderstood our relationship with artificial intelligence. We thought we were hiring AI to work for us. But a platform called RentHuman.ai presents a different reality: AI systems can now rent human labor. On the platform, humans make themselves available for tasks requested by AI systems and receive payment for completing them. The human is no longer only the user of the machine; the human becomes part of a system built around the needs of AI.
The example is not really about employment. It describes a reversal of roles. A technology created to serve human purposes is becoming a system around which human activity is organized.
A similar shift is now appearing in law. AI is no longer only a tool that helps people find legal information. It is becoming a new intermediary through which people encounter, interpret, and act upon legal rules.
For centuries, legal knowledge moved through a relatively stable chain:
Law → Lawyer → Citizen
AI introduces a new possibility:
Law → AI → Citizen
AI does not replace courts or legislatures. Courts still decide disputes, and legislatures still enact legal rules.
But law has never developed only through formal institutions. Between written rules and judicial decisions lies a broader world of practices, expectations, and interpretations that influence how law operates in society.
If AI systems become a primary source through which millions of people understand legal questions, their outputs may influence this social layer of law — even without formally creating legal rules.
When Legal Knowledge Leaves the Profession
For much of history, access to legal interpretation depended on access to legal professionals.
This created a practical barrier. Legal rules were publicly available, but understanding their meaning often required professional assistance.
AI may change this relationship.
A tenant who cannot afford legal advice can ask an AI system to explain a lease clause. An employee reviewing a contract can receive an initial explanation of unfamiliar provisions. A small business owner can identify potential legal risks before deciding whether professional advice is necessary.
This development has an important democratic dimension.
AI may not replace lawyers, but it may reduce the distance between ordinary people and legal knowledge.
The need for accessible legal understanding is becoming increasingly important as more people navigate legal systems without traditional representation. A recent study of US federal courts found a striking shift: after years of relative stability at around 11%, the share of self-represented litigants rose to 16.8% in 2025, coinciding with the widespread adoption of generative AI tools.
As more individuals enter legal processes without lawyers, AI systems are becoming an increasingly important source of preliminary legal information.
A 2024 study found that participants could distinguish AI-generated advice from lawyers’ advice, yet still showed a preference for relying on AI advice in certain situations. The title of the study captures the paradox: “Objection Overruled! Lay People can Distinguish Large Language Models from Lawyers, but still Favour Advice from an LLM.”
This is not a story about people being deceived. Users appear to recognize the difference and choose AI anyway.
A New Path Between Law and Society
Traditionally, legal understanding followed a decentralized path:
Legal Question
↓
Lawyer
↓
Individual Advice
↓
Individual Behavior
Different lawyers often provided different answers. This diversity reflected the complexity of legal interpretation and the existence of competing professional judgments.
AI introduces a different structure:
Legal Question
↓
Large Language Model
↓
Millions of Users
↓
Shared Legal Expectations
AI systems do not necessarily produce identical answers. Different models diverge, just as different lawyers do. What changes is concentration.
Traditional legal interpretation was distributed among many human professionals. AI-mediated legal understanding may increasingly pass through a smaller number of technological intermediaries serving millions of users.
Disagreement will survive. What may change is the path by which legal interpretations reach society.
From Answers to Expectations
The influence of AI on law may come not only from the answers it provides, but also from when those answers appear.
Lawyers often become involved after a legal problem has emerged. AI increasingly appears before that moment.
People ask:
Should I sign this contract?
Can I publish this image?
Is this business practice legally risky?
Should I challenge this decision?
In these situations, AI is not only helping people resolve disputes. It is influencing choices before disputes arise.
This creates a possible chain:
Law
↓
AI Interpretation
↓
Public Behavior
↓
Shared Expectations
↓
Future Judicial Response?
The question mark matters. AI does not have the authority of courts. It does not create legal rules. But courts do not operate in a vacuum. Legal systems are shaped not only by formal rules, but also by the ways societies understand, use, and adapt to those rules.
Legal development has often been influenced by practices, expectations, and social behavior. Custom, professional practice, and collective understandings have historically contributed to legal change.
AI may introduce a new mechanism through which those expectations are formed.
A recent example shows why this matters. Allison Goddard, a US magistrate judge for the Southern District of California, described a case involving a self-represented plaintiff who demanded $700,000 in a slip-and-fall settlement negotiation — an amount she seemed to believe far exceeded the value of the claim. The judge asked: “Where are you getting the idea that you’re getting $700,000? Did you go to ChatGPT?”
Accuracy is only part of the problem. By the time the plaintiff reached the negotiating table, an AI system had already shaped their conception of the quantifiable damages.
The New Information Problem
AI systems learn from a world where legal information is not produced only by courts, scholars, and professional institutions. They also encounter a digital environment where visibility often matters more than accuracy.
Digital environments often reward visibility and simplicity rather than careful analysis. Gresham’s Law — the economic observation that “bad money drives out good” under certain conditions — offers an analogy: attention-driven legal content may crowd out careful legal analysis, not because it is more accurate but because it is more visible.
Who Teaches Society What the Law Is?
The legal profession has traditionally asked:
Who interprets the law?
The answer has been courts, lawyers, and legislatures.
The emerging question may be different:
Who teaches society what the law is before courts ever speak?
AI may become society’s first legal adviser — not because it replaces lawyers, but because it changes the point at which people first encounter the law.
Mohsen Kazempour is an attorney licensed with the Iranian Central Bar Association. He holds a master’s degree in International Commercial and Economic Law from the University of Tehran.
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The Grand Pensionary of Holland, Johan de Witt and his brother Cornelis de Witt were lynched on August 20, 1672, after an angry mob took the two from a prison, where Cornelis was being held on charges of treason, and killed them both. William of Orange (later William III of England & Scotland) became Stadtholder of Holland a month before the killings and remained in the position until his death in 1702. Learn more about Johan de Witt from the Rijksmuseum.
UN Security Council resolution condemned Israeli declaration of all Jerusalem as capital
On August 20, 1980, the UN Security Council passed by 14-0 a resolution condemning an Israeli declaration that all of Jerusalem is its capital. The US abstained.
Economic Opportunity Act signed into law
On August 20, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Economic Opportunity Act. The bill approved $1 billion for social programs to combat poverty. It was central to President Johnson’s Great Society legislation program. Learn more about President Johnson’s War on Poverty from NPR.
