Jurisprudence and AI Alignment Share Fundamental Structure

A new paper on arXiv (2605.08416) argues that jurisprudence, the study of how judges decide cases, and AI alignment, the science of making AI conform to human values, share a fundamental structure. Both fields seek to predict and shape decisions by powerful actors—judges and increasingly powerful AIs—in unknown futures, using specification and interpretation of language. The essay draws on leading jurisprudence accounts, particularly Dworkin's principle-oriented interpretivism and Sunstein's positivist view of law as analogical reasoning, to explore insights between the two fields.