Appropriating Legal AI Development: The Existential and Political Dynamics of Legal AI-Artifacts

The advance of legal AI applications within the legal profession poses questions about the ethics and the politics of this technological development. Some would argue that these developments are inevitable, and that the legal profession can do little more than to adapt to these developments. Others would say that there is and should still be room to question and proactively shape these developments. This chapter explores the different positions towards legal AI. It argues for the adoption of a notion of ethics and politics of technology that does not take the advance of legal AI as inevitable. Rather, the course of legal AI developments should still be open for questioning and proactive shaping. For this purpose, this chapter develops a notion of reflexive techno-politics and existential-ethics that can both help to appropriate legal AI developments.