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Gabriel Weil
Assistant Professor of Law
Biography
Gabriel Weil is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Houston Law Center. He is also a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Institute for Law & AI and a co-founder of the Stanford Judicial Institute on AI, which educates state and federal judges on artificial intelligence.
Professor Weil's research addresses liability for AI harms. He argues that AI developers should face strict liability when their systems engage in conduct that would be tortious for a human, provided that neither the user nor any intermediary intended or was negligent with respect to the conduct. In addition to closing that liability gap, he argues for mitigating the judgment-proofness problem by requiring liability insurance and expanding the availability of punitive damages to account for uninsurable risks. Legislators have taken the argument up: versions of the framework have been introduced in Rhode Island and New York, and he is working on similar legislation with congressional offices and with legislators in other states.
His work also takes up the challenges digital minds might present for liberal democracy, and develops a framework for assessing when judges may depart from their best reading of the Constitution, a question he argues artificial legal interpreters will force into the open by requiring that tacit judicial tradeoffs be specified in advance. Professor Weil's scholarly roots are in climate change law, where he published on legal mechanisms for overcoming the global commons problem, geoengineering governance, and the optimal role of subnational policy.
Before joining the UH faculty, Professor Weil taught at Touro Law Center. He previously held positions at the Climate Leadership Council, the Georgetown Climate Center, and the White House Council on Environmental Quality. He holds a J.D., cum laude, from Georgetown, an LL.M. in environmental law, summa cum laude, from Pace, and a B.A. in political science, physics, and integrated science from Northwestern. Professor Weil is a member of the UH Presidential Frontier Faculty, a university-wide integrated interdisciplinary faculty hiring campaign to respond to federal priorities and societal challenges.
Professor Weil's research addresses liability for AI harms. He argues that AI developers should face strict liability when their systems engage in conduct that would be tortious for a human, provided that neither the user nor any intermediary intended or was negligent with respect to the conduct. In addition to closing that liability gap, he argues for mitigating the judgment-proofness problem by requiring liability insurance and expanding the availability of punitive damages to account for uninsurable risks. Legislators have taken the argument up: versions of the framework have been introduced in Rhode Island and New York, and he is working on similar legislation with congressional offices and with legislators in other states.
His work also takes up the challenges digital minds might present for liberal democracy, and develops a framework for assessing when judges may depart from their best reading of the Constitution, a question he argues artificial legal interpreters will force into the open by requiring that tacit judicial tradeoffs be specified in advance. Professor Weil's scholarly roots are in climate change law, where he published on legal mechanisms for overcoming the global commons problem, geoengineering governance, and the optimal role of subnational policy.
Before joining the UH faculty, Professor Weil taught at Touro Law Center. He previously held positions at the Climate Leadership Council, the Georgetown Climate Center, and the White House Council on Environmental Quality. He holds a J.D., cum laude, from Georgetown, an LL.M. in environmental law, summa cum laude, from Pace, and a B.A. in political science, physics, and integrated science from Northwestern. Professor Weil is a member of the UH Presidential Frontier Faculty, a university-wide integrated interdisciplinary faculty hiring campaign to respond to federal priorities and societal challenges.
