Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to alter the interpretation of the duties of care, skill, and diligence. As these duties form the foundation for the BJR and equivalent provisions, the development of AI is also expected to impact the BJR. There is a broadening importance, in an increasingly data-driven business environment, of the requirement to gather sufficient information before making a decision and to use information in a valid manner. Changes are both quantitative (how much information to collect) and qualitative (which types of information to collect). The changes also relate to the methods of decision-making, including the role of measures and statistics over intuition.
Business Organizations
This piece has profited enormously from feedback during the University of Chicago Law School’s workshop on “How AI Will Change the Law.” I would like to thank Stephen Bainbridge and Martin Gelter for enlightening me with expert input in the context of the U.S. business judgment rule. Needless to say, all remaining errors are mine.
This Essay explores whether the use of AI to enhance decision-making brings about radical change in legal doctrine or, by contrast, is just another new tool. It focuses on decision-making by board members. This provides an especially relevant example because corporate law has laid out explicit expectations for how board members must go about decision-making.
For helpful comments, I thank Alan Auerbach, Alan Blinder, Mitchell Engler, Victor Fleischer, Mark Gergen, Kevin Hassett, James Hines, Mitchell Kane, Alex Raskolnikov, Julie Roin, Frank Sammartino, Daniel Shaviro, Joel Slemrod, Gene Seago, David Weisbach, Larry Zelenak, and participants at the University of Michigan’s Tax Policy Workshop Series and NYU’s Colloquium Series on Tax Policy and Public Finance. Special thanks to Reed Shuldiner and Michael Knoll for many useful discussions. This research was not supported by funding from any outside source. The working paper version of this Article was first circulated and posted on SSRN on June 25, 2007. See Chris William Sanchirico, The Tax Advantage to Paying Private Equity Fund Managers with Profit Shares: What is It? Why is It Bad? (University of Pennsylvania Institute for Law and Economics Research Paper No 07-14, June 25, 2007), online at http://ssrn.com/abstract= 996665 (visited June 8, 2008).
This Article has benefited from the comments and suggestions of Professors Bobby Ahdieh, Douglas Baird, Margaret Blair, Bill Bratton, William Christie, Steven Davidoff, Gillian Hadfield, Paul Heald, Larry Helfer, Donald Langevoort, David Millon, Erin O’Hara, Bob Rasmussen, Hans Stoll, Bob Thompson, Joel Trachtman, and Todd Zywicki. The Article also benefited from faculty workshops at the University of Georgia, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, and Northwestern University. I would also like to thank Murray Teitelbaum, James Duffy, and the staff of the New York Stock Exchange for their time and valuable insight.
My thanks to Michael Abramowicz, Brad Clark, John Duffy, Howell Jackson, Geoffrey Miller, Richard Nagareda, Robert Rhee, Bill Rubenstein, Anthony Sebok, Mark Spindel, and participants in faculty workshops at Harvard Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, and George Washington University Law School.
Thanks to Robert Bartlett, Alicia Davis-Evans, Todd Henderson, Kim Hogrief, Arthur Levitt, Patrick McGurn, Nell Minow, Maureen Mulligan, Adam Pritchard, Robert Reville, two anonymous referees, and conference participants at The University of Chicago Law School, University of Michigan, and the American Bar Association Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Section for helpful comments and discussions, and to the RAND Corporation Institution for Civil Justice for generous support. Many thanks as well to the Corporate Library for granting me access to their data. All errors are mine.
In preparing this Article, I benefited greatly from conversations with several private-equity partners (both limited and general) as well as the excellent research assistance of Tracey Chenoweth. Thanks also, for insightful comments and advice, to Bobby Bartlett, Kate Litvak, Bob Rasmussen, Larry Ribstein, and Randall Thomas.
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