The Law is Weirder than AI

Abstract

Between artificial intelligence threatening to take our jobs and destroy the world while adopting the aesthetic of the weird and a presidential election that will be partially determined by how people feel about being weird, it seems like the weird is taking over. In this article, I make the case for embracing the weird. Only by embracing our own weirdness can we make sense of the weirdness (or lack thereof) of those that we do not understand. Primarily through the lens of author H.P. Lovecraft's weird tales, I argue that the law is very weird. This weirdness is mostly a good thing, but it does carry many of the same issues that plague Lovecraft's work. This acknowledgment of the weird then leads to an assessment of the weird claims surrounding "artificial intelligence" to dispel that mythology. The lens of the weird reveals artificial intelligence as a distressingly mundane monster, one who better represents the eerie spawn of very familiar forces. I conclude by explaining how the law's weirdness and the eerie forces that drive A.I. work together to create Sovereign Citizens, the law's own weird progeny. By understanding these three alien entities and their relationships with one another, legal minds can better appreciate their own place within a confusing and uncaring world.

Keywords: weird, artificial intelligence, sovereign citizens, legal profession, law and technology