In honor of the Halloween season and Stranger Things, one of my favorite series (outside of the Star Wars universe), I recently finished writing an article about the use of artificial intelligence in arbitration, titled “Stranger Disputes: When Artificial Intelligence Turns Arbitration Upside Down.” Pepperdine’s Dispute Resolution Law Journal will be publishing the article early next year, but in case you are interested, here’s a link to an early draft.
The thesis of my article is that under the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”), courts should enforce agreements to arbitrate where the decision is produced by an AI platform. The drafters of the FAA probably never thought of an AI arbitrator of course, but the history of the law’s enactment helps reveal certain values of the FAA. Considering this history, values, policy, and text of the FAA, I conclude the FAA would apply to the use of an AI arbitrator, although the use of an AI arbitrator would not be appropriate for all settings.