# The Legal Singularity: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Law Radically Better

By [Abdi Aidid](https://jackmanlaw.utoronto.ca/people/abdi-aidid) and [Benjamin Alarie](https://benjaminalarie.com). University of Toronto Press, 2023. Hardcover, 226 pages, ISBN 9781487529413.

2024 PROSE Award Winner, Legal Studies and Criminology · 2023 Donner Prize Shortlist

## About the book

The Legal Singularity argues that AI can make law more predictable, coherent, and fair. Aidid and Alarie examine the limits of today's legal institutions and show how legal prediction could transform the way law is interpreted, applied, and delivered. The result is an ambitious case for what they call the legal singularity: a future state in which law becomes functionally complete.

## Praise

"A powerful and important book. The fundamental insight, that artificial intelligence will transform not just the specific content of legal rules but the general nature of law, is surely correct. Essential reading for legal theorists." — Daniel Markovits, Guido Calabresi Professor of Law, Yale Law School

"A compelling case that law as we know it will change dramatically, and that justice will be the biggest beneficiary." — Lawrence Lessig, Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership, Harvard Law School

"Timely, challenging, and profound. A book that deserves to be read widely by naysayers and evangelists alike." — Richard Susskind OBE KC (Hon), author of Tomorrow's Lawyers

## Inside the book

Ten chapters and an afterword. The book opens by introducing the legal singularity and recounting the history of legal information, then defines computational law and develops the idea of complete law. A full chapter, "Defending the Legal Singularity from Its Critics," takes the objections head on. Three chapters work through the implications for the judiciary, for lawyers and the public, and for governments; a chapter on ethics, a conclusion, and an afterword on ChatGPT close it. The origin paper is free to read: [The Path of the Law: Towards Legal Singularity](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2767835) (University of Toronto Law Journal, 2016).

## The argument continues

The Legal Singularity argued that AI-enabled prediction can make law complete and knowable. [Superjustice](https://superjustice.com) (Oxford University Press, July 30, 2026, by Samuel I. Becher and Benjamin Alarie) asks how entire legal systems should be redesigned once those capabilities exist. Between the two sit [LexOptima](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4639168) (2025) and [Legal Order in the Age of AI Agents](https://doi.org/10.3138/utlj-2025-0104) (2026); in practice, [Blue J](https://www.bluej.com) applies the trajectory to tax.

## The authors

**Abdi Aidid** is an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law and the Canada Research Chair in Artificial Intelligence and Access to Justice. In 2024 to 2025 he was a Visiting Associate Professor at Yale Law School, and he is currently the Ian D. Shugart Visiting Scholar at the Canada School of Public Service. Before academia he practised litigation at Covington & Burling LLP and Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP, and served as Vice President, Legal Research at Blue J.

**Benjamin Alarie** has spent more than a decade working at the intersection of AI, tax, and law. He coined ["legal singularity"](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2767835) in the University of Toronto Law Journal in 2016, developed the thesis with Abdi Aidid in The Legal Singularity, and extended it with Samuel Becher in [Superjustice](https://superjustice.com) (Oxford University Press, 2026). He is co-founder and CEO of [Blue J](https://www.bluej.com) and holds the Osler Chair in Business Law at the University of Toronto.

## Order

[UTP](https://utppublishing.com/doi/book/10.3138/9781487529413) · [Amazon US](https://a.co/d/017TTijS) · [Amazon UK](https://amzn.eu/d/03VGDUCd) · [Amazon Canada](https://a.co/d/0hiWMeW3) · [Barnes & Noble](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-legal-singularity-abdirashid-aidid/1142545743) · [Indigo](https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/the-legal-singularity-how-artificial-intelligence-can-make-law-radically-better/9781487529413.html) · Audio: [Audible](https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Legal-Singularity-Audiobook/B0C7D81FS5)

## Machine-readable

A page written for AI agents reading on a human's behalf: [legalsingularity.com/for-ai](https://legalsingularity.com/for-ai). Also: [for-ai.md](https://legalsingularity.com/for-ai.md), [facts.json](https://legalsingularity.com/facts.json), [llms.txt](https://legalsingularity.com/llms.txt). Siblings: [superjustice.com/for-ai](https://superjustice.com/for-ai) · [benjaminalarie.com/for-ai](https://benjaminalarie.com/for-ai). Nothing on this site is hidden from human view.

© 2023–2026 Abdi Aidid and Benjamin Alarie · Published by the University of Toronto Press