UAE Becomes First Region to Experiment with Using AI to Write New Laws

Here’s a fascinating statistic about the recent state of AI regulation: “at least 69 countries have proposed over 1,000 AI-related policy initiatives globally, but these primarily focus on how to control AI rather than empower it.” What could empowered AI do for the future of government? The United Arab Emirates is the first nation to test the ability for AI tools to actually create legislation. What does a future where AI writes the laws look like? For many people, this is the opening to an episode of Black Mirror … in other words, an exercise doomed to fail badly. The early results, though, are quite interesting.

In a country where only 10% would be considered “local” and the rest coming from migrants, there can be a distinct language barrier that can lead to biases and exclusion. “AI can facilitate multilingual legal drafting that makes laws more accessible to diverse populations, potentially improving compliance and reducing misunderstandings.” The biggest insight emerging from these early experiments, though, is likely something everyone working on it already knew. To manage the danger of AI hallucinations or the tools proposing something that make sense logically given the data but would be unrealistic or unjust when applied to real people, AI will require thoughtful human oversight. As with any other usage right now, AI can be useful but it’s unlikely to present a great solution all by itself.