Toward a Quantum-Inspired Framework for Modelling Legal Rules

There is a growing demand for the development of computational models of legal rulesets, yet scholars acknowledge an incompatibility between the deterministic nature of current legal coding processes and the indeterminate nature of the law. Previously, legal scholars have identified conceptual links between the indeterminacy of quantum mechanics and the law, but very few have attempted to formally model the law using a framework inspired by the formalism of quantum information. I highlight similarities regarding indeterminacy as it is understood by legal and scientific scholars, motivating the construction of a quantum-inspired framework to model ambiguous legal rules. I outline how multi-qubit systems can be used to represent ambiguous legal rules formally, wherein each state of the system represents competing orthogonal interpretations of the law. I show that the amplitude corresponding to an interpretation state can represent its likelihood of validity and secondary interpretive characteristics, such as jurisprudential alignment. Using measures of classical and quantum information theory, these states can be analysed to yield information relating to forms of ambiguity, intra- and intertextuality, and inconsistencies present in a legal ruleset and interpretations. Finally, I illustrate the potential for generative artificial intelligence to assist in producing these quantum-inspired models of legal rules.