This is a policy primer on AI that I wrote for my students at Emory Law, specifically for a course on “Current Topics in the Law and Policy of AI” in 2026, but it may be of general interest. The first half of this primer focuses on some essential background: what AI is, where it came from, and why the current generation of systems works as well as it does. The second half sets out the interests and concerns that motivate people to want to regulate AI.
Contents
Part I: What AI Is and How We Got Here
Part II: Why Regulate AI?
Related reading
- Matthew Sag, Copyright Law in the Age of AI (Fall 2026 edition) — a complete casebook on United States copyright law, free to download.
- Tonja Jacobi & Matthew Sag, We Are the AI Problem, 74 Emory L. J. Online 1 (2024).