Abstract:

The rapid integration of artificial intelligence into decision-making processes across public and private institutions is reshaping the landscape within which legal professionals operate. From automated credit scoring and predictive policing to algorithmic recruitment and corporate risk assessment systems, algorithmic decision making is increasingly exercising what scholars describe as algorithmic authority. While these systems promise efficiency, they unfortunately, simultaneously raise profound legal and ethical concerns relating to accountability, bias, transparency as well as due process. More importantly, despite these developments, legal education has largely approached artificial intelligence from a technological or tool-based perspective which focuses on how students can utilize generative AI in learning environments rather than how future legal practitioners should critically interrogate AI-driven decision-making systems. This paper argues that contemporary legal education must move beyond technological literacy and more toward cultivating algorithmic accountability literacy. Law graduates must be equipped not only to understand the functioning of AI systems, but also, to challenge their legitimacy where they undermine constitutional values and principles of procedural fairness. By making use of a doctrinal and interdisciplinary desk-based analysis, this paper examines the growing influence of algorithmic authority and it considers the implications for legal pedagogy. It identifies critical gaps that exist in current legal curricula within South African higher education institutions, and this paper further proposes a pedagogical framework that is aimed at preparing future lawyers to interrogate as well as challenge AI-driven decision-making in governance and corporate environments. This paper ultimately argues that equipping law students with the analytical tools to confront algorithmic authority is becoming an essential component of responsible legal education in an AI-mediated society.

Keywords:

Algorithmic Authority, AI-Driven Decision-Making, Legal Education, Artificial Intelligence in Education, South Africa.