We sit down with Stephan Breidenbach, co-founder of the Rulemapping Group and a German scholar who's been quietly revolutionising how we think about law, technology, and democratic governance since the early 2000s.
What started as a teaching tool to help law students visualise complex legal reasoning has evolved into something far more ambitious: a comprehensive system for transforming laws into executable code that maintains human oversight while dramatically improving access to justice.
Stephan's present work spans three critical areas: decision automation (turning legal rules into fast, transparent systems), rule-based AI (supporting human lawyers with explainable reasoning), and law as code (drafting legislation that's both human and machine-readable from day one).
Some of our highlights from the conversation:
The Transparency Imperative: "I would never trust an LLM with a legal process because it's confabulating" Stephan declares, highlighting why the Rulemapping approach prioritises explainable AI over black-box solutions. Their system lets human decision-makers see exactly how the AI reached its conclusions – a "zoom in, zoom out" process that mirrors how lawyers naturally think.
Democracy-First Technology: Unlike Silicon Valley's "move fast and break things" mentality, Stephan advocates for keeping humans in the loop even when AI becomes more accurate: "I think it's very important for trust in the legal system and therefore in a democratic system that there are human beings, even if they make worse decisions."
Access to Justice at Scale: Through real-world deployments like processing 500,000 diesel emission scandal cases and serving as Europe's first certified Digital Services Act dispute resolution body, Rulemapping demonstrates how thoughtful automation can make legal systems accessible to everyone, not just those who can afford lawyers.
We also explore the behavioural risks of over-relying on automated systems, the potential for "law as code" to improve democratic participation, and Stephan's vision of embedded law that serves citizens rather than bureaucracy.
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