Scaling Laws Is AI a Death Sentence for Civic Institutions?, with Jessica Silbey and Woodrow Hartzog
Mar 17, 2026
Woodrow Hartzog, a law professor specializing in privacy and tech, and Jessica Silbey, a law professor focused on institutions and technology, discuss how AI reshapes civic institutions. They explore institutional theory, technological affordances, AI’s effects on expertise and skill atrophy, legitimacy and reason-giving in law, and argue for bespoke, institution-specific AI and precautionary governance.
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What Institutions Actually Are
- Institutions are circulating cultural norms and resources that coordinate many organizations toward shared purposes.
- Jessica Silbey explains institutions (e.g., law, science, higher ed) differ from organizations as invisible organizing structures that confer legitimacy over time.
AI Has Strong Design Defaults
- Technological affordances are design characteristics that channel how tools get used rather than being neutral.
- Woodrow Hartzog uses the coffee mug and stairs examples and stresses design picks winners and losers when deployed in existing incentive structures.
AI Should Be Viewed As Interconnected Systems
- The authors group many systems under 'AI' because they interact and form composite systems rather than acting in isolation.
- Woodrow Hartzog and Jessica Silbey note facial recognition, generative models, and predictive systems often combine in deployment and development.