Law and Technology Workshop, 11/14, 11.30 am ET

Friday, November 14, 2025, 11.30 am - 12.30 pm ET

Alan Rozenshtein: The Unitary Artificial Executive

Discussant: Aditya Bamzai

Abstract: Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to cause a dramatic and unprecedented concentration of power within the executive branch of government, fundamentally altering the American constitutional balance. This transformation will occur through five primary vectors: (1) the likely creation of broad emergency presidential powers to manage AI-related crises; (2) the capacity for AI to enable near-perfect, automated enforcement of laws and regulations; (3) the executive's ability to dominate the information environment through AI-driven propaganda; (4) the erosion of oversight in national security as AI accelerates decision-making to speeds beyond human review; and (5) the practical realization of the “unitary executive” theory.

This final vector is arguably the most profound. By serving as a cognitive proxy for the President—monitoring internal agency alignment and injecting presidential preferences into countless administrative decisions—AI can overcome the practical constraints that have historically limited presidential control. The result is a "Unitary Artificial Executive" where the entire branch not only follows the President's orders but thinks with the President's mind. Addressing this consolidation of power presents a formidable challenge, requiring responses that range from enhanced congressional oversight to the development of "law-following" AI. Ultimately, it may demand a direct jurisprudential rejection of the strongest versions of the unitary executive theory itself, as a constitutional framework rooted in assumptions from the late-eighteenth century may have finally met its match in a technology from the early twenty-first.

The Unitary Artificial Executive - Rozenshtein.pdf655.97 KB • PDF File

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