Artificial Intelligence ante portas: The End of Comparative Law?

Artificial intelligence (AI) can do many things that were not thought of some years ago and that are unimaginable for non-AI experts even today. In contrast, it is relatively easy to understand that AI can be used to compare contents and structures of laws and legal documents. In fact, the comparative abilities of AI are the reason why AI is now playing an increasing role—for example, in due diligence exercises where contracts, documents as well as other materials and legal data of target companies are benchmarked against standard patterns. If the ‘ability to compare’ is one of the core features of AI it is only natural to assume that AI is an ideal tool to conduct comparative law work. This article explores if this assumption is correct. This article first highlights key features of the comparative law work process, which, for some strange reason, is hardly ever discussed in the legal literature. This article describes and analyses the different stages and investigates which parts can (or cannot) be conducted by AI. It also asks if AI will—within the scope of its comparative abilities—in fact, ‘take over’ from human comparatists. On the basis of the findings, this article concludes that it is more likely than not that comparative law work will, in the future, be AI based.