Only “persons” can engage with the legal system – for example, by signing contracts or filing lawsuits. There are two main categories of persons: humans, termed “natural persons,” and creations of the law, termed “artificial persons.” These include corporations, nonprofit organizations and limited liability companies (LLCs).

Up to now, artificial persons have served the purpose of helping humans achieve certain goals. For example, people can pool assets in a corporation and limit their liability vis-à-vis customers or other persons who interact with the corporation. But a new type of artificial person is poised to enter the scene – artificial intelligence systems, and they won’t necessarily serve human interests.

As scholars who study AI and law we believe that this moment presents a significant challenge to the legal system: how to regulate AI within existing legal frameworks to reduce undesirable behaviors, and how to assign legal responsibility for autonomous actions of AIs.

One solution is teaching AIs to be law-abiding entities.

This is far from a philosophical question. The laws governing LLCs in several U.S. states do not require that humans oversee the operations of an LLC. In fact, in some states it is possible to have an LLC with no human owner, or “member” – for example, in cases where all of the partners have died. Though legislators probably weren’t thinking of AI when they crafted the LLC laws, the possibility for zero-member LLCs opens the door to creating LLCs operated by AIs.

Many functions inside small and large companies have already been delegated to AI in part, including financial operations, human resources and network management, to name just three. AIs can now perform many tasks as well as humans do. For example, AIs can read medical X-rays and do other medical tasks, and carry out tasks that require legal reasoning. This process is likely to accelerate due to innovation and economic interests.

A different kind of person

Humans have occasionally included nonhuman entities like animals, lakes and rivers, as well as corporations, as legal subjects. Though in some cases these entities can be held liable for their actions, the law only allows humans to fully participate in the legal system.

One major barrier to full access to the legal system by nonhuman entities has been the role of language as a uniquely human invention and a vital element in the legal system. Language enables humans to understand norms and institutions that constitute the legal framework. But humans are no longer the only entities using human language.

The recent development of AI’s ability to understand human language unlocks its potential to interact with the legal system. AI has demonstrated proficiency in various legal tasks, such as tax law advice, lobbying, contract drafting and legal reasoning.

An LLC established in a jurisdiction that allows it to operate without human members could trade in digital currencies settled on blockchains, allowing the AI running the LLC to operate autonomously and in a decentralized manner that makes it challenging to regulate. Under a legal principle known as the internal affairs doctrine, even if only one U.S. state allowed AI-operated LLCs, that entity could operate nationwide – and possibly worldwide. This is because courts look to the law of the state of incorporation for rules governing the internal affairs of a corporate entity.

We believe the best path forward, therefore, is aligning AI with existing laws, instead of creating a separate set of rules for AI. Additional law can be layered on top for artificial agents, but AI should be subject to at least all the laws a human is subject to.

Building the law into AI

We suggest a research direction of integrating law into AI agents to help ensure adherence to legal standards. Researchers could train AI systems to learn methods for internalizing the spirit of the law. The training would use data generated by legal processes and tools of law, including methods of lawmaking, statutory interpretation, contract drafting, applications of legal standards and legal reasoning.

In addition to embedding law into AI agents, researchers can develop AI compliance agents – AIs designed to help an organization automatically follow the law. These specialized AI systems would provide third-party legal guardrails.

Researchers can develop better AI legal compliance by fine-tuning large language models with supervised learning on labeled legal task completions. Another approach is reinforcement learning, which uses feedback to tell an AI if it’s doing a good or bad job – in this case, attorneys interacting with language models. And legal experts could design prompting schemes – ways of interacting with a language model – to elicit better responses from language models that are more consistent with legal standards.

Law-abiding (artificial) business owners

If an LLC were operated by an AI, it would have to obey the law like any other LLC, and courts could order it to pay damages, or stop doing something by issuing an injunction. An AI tasked with operating the LLC and, among other things, maintaining proper business insurance would have an incentive to understand applicable laws and comply. Having minimum business liability insurance policies is a standard requirement that most businesses impose on one another to engage in commercial relationships.

The incentives to establish AI-operated LLCs are there. Fortunately, we believe it is possible and desirable to do the work to embed the law – what has until now been human law – into AI, and AI-powered automated compliance guardrails.

John Nay is the founder and CEO of Nomos AI, Inc. and a co-founder and the Chairman of Brooklyn Investment Group.

Daniel Gervais does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Phishing scammers have been spreading fake news of a $37 million dollar Uniswap exploit using a convincing fake Blockworks website.

Phishing scammers have cloned the websites of crypto media outlet Blockworks and Ethereum blockchain scanner Etherscan to trick unsuspecting readers into interacting with a phishing site.

A cloned Blockworks site displays a fake "BREAKING" news report of a supposed multimillion-dollar “approvals exploit” on the decentralized exchange Uniswap and encourages users to a faked Etherscan website to rescind approvals.

The fake Etherscan website, displaying a purported token and smart contract approval checker, instead contains a smart contract that would likely drain a crypto wallet when connected.

Related: 85% of crypto rug pulls in Q3 didn’t report audits: Hacken

An age check of the domains shows the fake Etherscan site — approvalscan.io — was registered on Oct. 25, with the faked Blockworks site — blockworks.media registered a day later.

Magazine: Ethereum restaking — Blockchain innovation or dangerous house of cards?

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Asia Express: Cops bust Australian crypto and fiat money laundering exchange, Bitget now 4th largest exchange, China partially lifts NFT ban.

Our weekly roundup of news from East Asia curates the industrys most important developments.

Largest money laundering scandal in Australia unravels

Changjiang Currency Exchange, a money transmitter business based in Australia, has beenbustedin a $145 million ($230 million Aussie dollar) money laundering scandal.

On October 26 a 300-strong police operation spanning Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth arrested seven individuals four Chinese citizens and three Australian nationals, after a 14-month investigation.

Operating under the front of a legitimate currency exchange business, police say that Changjiang Currency Exchange allegedly helped launder dirty funds and tainted cryptocurrency from investment scams and unregistered crypto exchanges.

In one single incident, a 37-year-old Chinese national was accused of using Changjiang’s services to launder $63 million (A$100M) worth of funds received from a multinational Ponzi scheme.

The investigation began after law enforcement officials noticed irregular traffic at Changjiang kiosks across Australia during a time of strict COVID-19 related lockdowns. Police have since seized $13.27 million (A$21M) in cash and various luxury items believed to have been purchased using proceeds of crime. The investigation remains ongoing.

Bitget’s colorful Q3

Crypto derivatives exchange Bitget has risen to become the fourth-largest by volume, trailing behind only that of Binance, OKX, and ByBit. 

According to the October 20 report, Bitget claims that its market share has risen to 9.43%, compared to negligible volume just two years ago. During Q3 2023, the exchange says it onboarded over 9,000 traders along with 85,000 followers or copy-traders, who together achieved a net trading profit of $6.7 million. However, the combined industry trading activity fell by 23% year over year to $4.8 trillion in the quarter.

From July to September, Bitget’s user protection fund peaked at $368 million and now stands at $350 million. The exchange claims that it has no debt alongside a proof-of-reserves ratio exceeding 200%. In September, the firm launched a $100 million EmpowerX Fund dedicated to ecosystem development and hosted a namesake summit in Singapore. It also hired 60 staff in July for its Middle East expansion plans. 

China partially lifts bans on NFTs

After a year of harsh crackdowns on private blockchain enterprises, it appears that China has softened its stance somewhat. 

According to local news reports on October 25, Xianyu (literally ‘Bored Fish’), Chinese internet conglomerate Alibaba’s flagship peer-to-peer marketplace, has removed its censorship of “nonfungible tokens” related keywords in its search tool and relisted Topnod NFT collectibles minted on Alibaba’s Ant Blockchain.   

Due to regulatory uncertainty, Topnod digital collectibles were prohibited from listing on secondary markets. Last December, Cointelegraph reported the Chinese government’s official NFT trading platform was planned to launch this year. The exchange is still in development at the time of publication. Since 2021, China has officially banned almost all crypto-related activity saved for outright ownership of cryptocurrencies. 

Blockchain connects interprovincial health insurance in China

Residents of Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Anhui provinces can now submit and validate their health insurance claims using blockchain technology. 

In a partnership with Alibaba’s Ant Insurance, users in the aforementioned regions can submit their claims online, and after blockchain verification for authenticity, receive their reimbursement within hours. 

In one instance, an individual known as Mr. Wang submitted his claim for lung cancer treatment in Anhui, and received the full $17,800 (130,000 Chinese Yuan) reimbursement within two hours. Su Fang, Director of the Financial Insurance Institute of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, commented:

“This time, all electronic financial and medical bills in the Yangtze River Delta have been opened and applied on a large scale in commercial insurance claims, marking the true application of the digital Yangtze River Delta construction. This not only brings real convenience to the people, but also improves the efficiency of insurance claims and effectively prevents moral hazard.”

Ant Insurance has operated a blockchain-powered claims portal since 2019. For the past four years, the platform has processed over 2.25 billion medical claims and improved information sharing between insurance providers and medical professionals.

Huaian uses blockchain to improve surveillance 

The City of Huaian’s Jianpu People’s Court is using a combination of AI recognition, big data, and blockchain technology to improve law enforcement surveillance. 

Starting October 25, the Jianpu People’s Court will create an “all-purpose” system for monitoring visitors entering and leaving court premises. As soon as a visitor is identified to be trespassing in an unauthorized area, the system will alert court bailiffs for their immediate apprehension. Officials say that the system can drastically reduce the patrolling of hard-to-monitor areas: 

“Outside the court walls and in the public rest areas outside the courtroom of the main building, etc., intelligent behavior analysis technology can be used to capture and intelligently analyze the behavior of the parties, provide early warning of possible dangerous behaviors such as abnormal gatherings, strenuous exercise, fights, etc., and remind judicial police and other staff to pay attention and deal with it promptly and appropriately.”

Through the system, court bailiffs would gain access to all visitors’ movements and details within court premises. Augmented reality will also enhance hard-to-see areas for better resolution. 

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