- On 28 Oct 2026 Felix Ringe and Linus Folkerts described how AI models found a substantial number of gaps in German regulations, which they believe were not recorded before.
- They published three harmless examples and warn that cheap legal reasoning could flood courts with such cases.
In short: two legal researchers checked whether AI can hunt for errors in laws the way it hunts for bugs in code. In German law it found what they call a substantial number of them. Felix Ringe (a visiting fellow at Stanford Law School) and Linus Folkerts described this on 28 Oct 2026.
What the AI looked for
- The German constitution (Article 80(1), sentence 3) requires every regulation to cite its legal basis. A provision without a proper basis is void.
- The authors used AI models to find regulations that cite the wrong provision or none at all. They do not say which models they used or how many rules they scanned.
- To their knowledge, none of the gaps they found had been recorded before. They published only the ones whose exploitation would not cause serious harm.
Three examples
- Occupational diseases (BKV): a 16 July 2026 amendment made an expert council’s materials confidential, but cites § 9(1) of SGB VII instead of § 9(1a). A journalist could therefore challenge a refusal to release documents.
- Transit visas (AufenthV): a 2015 amendment added Mali to the list of countries needing an airport transit visa without citing the required provision of the act.
- Soldiers’ working time (SAZV): a March 2025 amendment exempted NATO’s JSEC headquarters from general rules without the required basis, so a captain could claim time off for overtime.
How to read this
This is a legal exploit, not an automatic court win: courts often patch such gaps through interpretation. Eric Goldman of Santa Clara University told The Register that the results need careful human review, that many gaps carry little legal weight, and that legislatures can fix them once found. The authors suggest lawmakers use advanced AI themselves to check new rules before they pass. Earlier research on so-called legal zero-days points the same way. I write about law and AI in the AI Act & law hub.