This chapter roots the authors' insights about automated legal guidance in a broader examination of why and how to address the democracy deficit in administrative law. As this chapter contemplates the future of agency communications, it also explores in greater detail the possibility that technological developments may allow government agencies not only to explain the law to the public using automated tools but also to automate the legal compliance obligations of individuals. While automated legal compliance raises serious concerns, recent examples reveal that it may soon become a powerful tool that agencies can apply broadly under the justifications of administrative efficiency. As this chapter argues, the lessons learned from our study of automated legal guidance are critical to maintaining values like transparency and legitimacy, as automated compliance expands as a result of perceived benefits like efficiency.

The Conclusion emphasizes the growing importance of automated legal guidance tools across government agencies. It crystalizes the insight that automated legal guidance tools reflect a trade-off between government agencies representing the law accurately and presenting it in accessible and understandable terms. While automated legal guidance tools enable agencies to reach more members of the public and provide them quick and easy explanations of the law, these quick and easy explanations sometimes obscure what the law actually is. The Conclusion acknowledges and accepts the importance of automated legal guidance to the future of governance, and, especially in light of this acknowledgement, recommends that legislators and agency officials adopt the policy recommendations presented in this book.

This chapter explores ways in which administrative law fails to address problems raised by automated legal guidance. Administrative law requires notice-and-comment procedures for so-called legislative rules, or rules that bind agencies and the public. Other, less binding agency statements regarding the law, including, for instance, statements that offer an agency’s interpretation of the law or its enforcement policy, are subject to lesser procedural requirements. This chapter examines how this blind spot in the administrative law framework mirrors a broader democracy deficit in administrative law. Strikingly, this area of law, the purpose of which is to mandate that administrative agencies act in certain ways to protect the public, simply fails to address the pervasive, and impactful, ways that agencies often communicate law to people through the types of informal explanations found in automated legal guidance. As this chapter argues, administrative law reflects a bias toward sophisticated parties, rather than the general public.

As Chapter 4 demonstrated, automated legal guidance often enables the government to present complex law as though it is simple without actually engaging in simplification of the underlying law. While this approach offers advantages in terms of administrative efficiency and ease of use by the public, it also causes the government to present the law as simpler than it is, leading to less precise advice and potentially inaccurate legal positions. As the use of automated legal guidance by government agencies is likely to grow in the future, a number of policy interventions are needed. This chapter offers multiple detailed policy recommendations for federal agencies that have introduced, or may introduce, chatbots, virtual assistants, and other automated tools to communicate the law to the public. Our recommendations are organized into five general categories: (1) transparency; (2) reliance; (3) disclaimers; (4) process; and (5) accessibility, inclusion, and equity.

The Introduction presents an overview of the use of automated legal guidance by government agencies. It offers examples of chatbots, virtual assistants, and other online tools in use across US federal government agencies and shows how the government is committed to expanding their application. The Introduction sets forth some of the critical features of automated legal guidance, including its tendency to make complex aspects of the law seem simple. The Introduction previews how automated legal guidance promises to increase access to complex statutes and regulations. However, the Introduction cautions that there are underappreciated costs of automated legal guidance, including that its simplification of statutes and regulations is more likely to harm members of the public who lack access to legal counsel than high-income and wealthy individuals. The Introduction provides a roadmap for the remainder of the book.

This chapter sets forth how government agencies are using artificial intelligence to automate their delivery of legal guidance to the public. The chapter first explores how many federal agencies have a duty not only to enforce the law but also to serve the public, including by explaining the law and helping the public understand how it applies. Agencies must contend with expectations that they will provide customer service experiences akin to those provided by the private sector. At the same time, government agencies lack sufficient resources. The complexity of statutes and regulations significantly compounds this challenge for agencies. As this chapter illustrates, the federal government has begun using virtual assistants, chatbots, and related technology to respond to tens of millions of inquiries from the public about the application of the law.

This chapter illuminates some of the hidden costs of the federal agencies’ use of automated legal guidance to explain the law to the public. It highlights the following features of these tools: they make statements that deviate from the formal law; they fail to provide notice to users about the accuracy and legal value of their statements; and they induce reliance in ways that impose inequitable burdens among different user populations. The chapter also considers how policymakers should weigh these costs against the benefits of automated legal guidance when contemplating whether to adopt, or increase, agencies’ use of these tools.

This chapter describes the results of the authors' research of automated legal guidance tools across the federal government, conducted over a five-year period from 2019 through 2023. The authors first began this study in preparation for a conference on tax law and artificial intelligence in 2019, and were able to expand it significantly, under the auspices of the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), in 2021. ACUS is an independent US government agency charged with recommending improvements to administrative process and procedure. The goals of this study were to understand how federal agencies use automated legal guidance and to offer recommendations based on these findings. During their research, the authors examined the automated legal guidance activities of every US federal agency. This research found that agencies used automation extensively to offer guidance to the public, albeit with varying levels of sophistication and legal content. This chapter focuses on two well-developed forms of automated legal guidance currently employed by federal agencies: the US Citizenship Immigration Services’ “Emma” and the Internal Revenue Service’s “Interactive Tax Assistant.”

This chapter explores how automated legal guidance helps both federal agencies and members of the public. It outlines several specific benefits, including administrative efficiency, communication of complex law in plain language, transparency regarding agency interpretations of the law, internal and external consistency regarding agency communications, and public engagement with the law.

This chapter describes interviews the authors conducted with federal agency officials about their use of automated legal guidance. This chapter offers insights gained from these interviews, including regarding the different models that agencies use to develop such guidance, their views on the usability of such guidance, the ways that agencies evaluate the guidance, and agencies’ views on successes and challenges that such guidance faces.