SIRI-OUSLY 2.0: what artificial intelligence reveals about the First Amendment

Contemplating the relationship between AI speech and the First Amendment sheds light on key features of prevailing free speech law, including the surprising lack of humanness at its core. Providing value to listeners and constraining the government's power now dominate First Amendment theory and doctrine—approaches that suggest extending First Amendment coverage to expression regardless of its nontraditional source or form. This is not a feature of new technologies, but instead of free speech law. The possibility that the First Amendment covers AI speech need not, however, rob the First Amendment of a human focus. Instead, it might encourage greater clarification of and emphasis on expression's value to human listeners—and its potential harms—in First Amendment theory and doctrine. This, in turn, appropriately invites critical analysis of the contours of current free speech law, as well as sharp thinking about free speech problems posed by the rise of AI.