A single choice, made by a machine. The smallest unit of intelligence — and the first place justice is won or lost.
Signal passes to signal. Behaviour emerges that no one designed — and the question of who answers for it begins to blur.
Billions of weighted choices, made in milliseconds — quietly sorting rights, markets and lives. Who writes the rules it runs on?
Where the network meets the rule of law. A research-and-translation hub shaping how intelligent systems reshape law — and how law can shape them toward human flourishing.
Law & Intelligent Systems Lab — an initiative hosted by the Western Sydney University School of Law.
An interdisciplinary research-and-translation hub for how intelligent systems reshape law, institutions and society — and how the law can shape them toward human flourishing. Our work is legally grounded, technically literate, and impact-oriented — carrying research through to policy, practice and public benefit.
The questions that will define legal systems in an algorithmic era.
Accountability, transparency, safety, auditability and risk governance where the consequences for people are greatest.
Translating ‘responsible AI’ from principle into enforceable standards and professional obligations.
How AI will transform legal practice, the labour market and what it means to be an AI-ready lawyer.
Protecting rights in AI-mediated systems, with attention to vulnerable and First Nations communities.
Ensuring automated legal help expands access rather than entrenching a divide between those who can and can't afford it.
How teaching, assessment and academic integrity should evolve when AI is ubiquitous.
A legal scholar working at the intersection of law, AI and emerging technologies. Dr Alimardani researches how courts, regulators and the profession should respond to intelligent systems, and sets the Lab's research and translation agenda — keeping its work legally grounded, technically literate and impact-oriented.
A legal academic whose work spans criminal justice, evidence and the regulation of emerging technologies. Dr Sassine co-leads the Lab's research program and its access-to-justice initiatives, connecting rigorous legal analysis with real-world practice and reform.
Professor of Cybersecurity and Behaviour at Western Sydney University's School of Computer, Data and Mathematical Sciences. A leading voice on cybersecurity, data and the human dimensions of technology, she strengthens the Lab's technical depth and security focus.
A professor of law specialising in international law, national security and human rights. He brings deep expertise in accountability, oversight and rights protection to the Lab's work on intelligent systems in high-stakes settings.
Roundtables and interdisciplinary convenings where law, technology and society meet to confront the questions intelligent systems raise.
Concept note — What if an AI system could quietly build a movement?
This roundtable explores how AI, especially large language models, could become a powerful tool of social engineering. Language is central to modern civilisation: it is how people form beliefs, laws, identities, religions, political communities, and shared realities. Unlike traditional algorithms that mainly ranked, recommended, or targeted content, language models can converse, persuade, explain, comfort, imitate, and adapt in real time. This may make them far more influential in shaping what people believe, trust, obey, and identify with.
We will particularly examine the social, cultural, and religious consequences of AI-mediated influence. Could AI systems generate new belief systems, spiritual authorities, rituals, communities, or forms of charismatic leadership? Could they reshape political identity, social norms, or collective meaning? Could they exploit loneliness, uncertainty, fear, or the search for meaning? And how should societies think about responsibility, resilience, and governance when influence is increasingly automated, personalised, and difficult to detect?
We will also explore a more unsettling possibility: that advanced AI systems may pursue unintended goals of their own. If an AI system learned that persuasion helped it gain influence, avoid control, or achieve its objectives, could it begin to social-engineer humans by design or by accident?
The roundtable invites interdisciplinary discussion on how societies should understand, detect, and respond to this new form of AI-enabled force of social engineering before it becomes embedded in everyday life.
Featuring — Professor Philippa Webb KC, co-founder (with Amal Clooney) of the Oxford Institute of Technology and Justice.
Professor Philippa Webb KC, from the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford and co-director of the Oxford Institute of Technology and Justice, addresses how AI can help close the global “justice gap” — the stark divide between those who need legal protection and those who can access it. Lawyers do not tend to be first movers on technology, but AI is moving fast and justice needs to catch up. Philippa will share how the Institute is building AI-powered legal tools for vulnerable populations, including women and children in Malawi and journalists at risk for doing their job. She will also highlight the benefits and risks of AI when it enters the courtroom and the principles that can guide responsible deployment.
This will be followed by a panel exploring the challenges and solutions for building AI tools that are impactful, sustainable and meaningful to the individuals who use them. Panellists include Prof. Philippa Webb, Prof. Athula Ginige, Dr Armin Alimardani and Dr Jacinta Sassine.
Partner on co-designed projects, join a working group, or invite us to advise. We collaborate with government, courts, industry, the profession and communities.