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.
|
Further Schedule: Law and Technology Workshop Website
December 19, 2025, noon - 1 pm ET: Giulia G. Cusenza, From Policy to Practice: Closing the Gap in AI Public Procurement
Discussant: Cary CoglianeseAALS Annual Meeting, January 9, 2026, 9.35 - 10.50 am, New Orleans:
Raúl Carrillo, Satellite Finance
Ximena Reverditto, Against Biomedical Progress
Arti Walker-Peddakotla, The Obfuscation of Surveillance
January 16, 2026, noon - 1 pm ET: Mehtab Khan, Access to Datasets
Discussant: Michael Goodyear
Please note, the Law and Technology Workshop has a new website: https://thelawtechworkshop.org/
