Machines Making Laws? The UAE’s AI Gambit - #7

Series: "Geopolitics of AI"

Artificial intelligence is advancing not only through labs and boardrooms but through the very halls of government. While most states focus on regulating the technology or applying it to specific administrative tasks, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is taking a different path; one that could reshape how we think about law, legitimacy, and the role of the state in the digital age.

In this edition of The Geopolitics of AI, we examine the UAE’s experiment in AI-driven lawmaking - an initiative that goes beyond automation to something much more foundational: governance by algorithm. We explore what this means for global norms, what other governments might take from this approach, and why the UAE may be quietly positioning itself as a model for a new kind of statecraft.