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Belmont Law Review

Abstract

Jeff Lingwall and Steven J. Hyde’s Pure Imagination: A World of Agentive AI and Anti-Adhesion Contracting examines the transformative—and destabilizing—effects of large language models (LLMs) on contract law. The Article situates LLM-mediated contracting within the historical evolution of contractual formalities, arguing that agentive AI introduces a new phase in which negotiation, offer, acceptance, performance, and even litigation may be conducted without meaningful human mediation. The authors develop a model of legal risk that increases as LLMs shift from human-reviewed drafting tools to autonomous agents purporting to negotiate or bind parties. They then explore the possibility of “anti-adhesive” mass-bespoke contracts, in which generative AI could combine the efficiencies of standardized contracting with individualized negotiation. While such systems promise reduced transaction costs and enhanced contractual surplus, the Article highlights systemic risks, including hallucination, manipulation, and “meaning chaos,” that undermine mutual assent and contractual certainty. To conceptualize these tensions, the authors propose a framework of “contractual distance” (the degree of rational, actual agreement between parties) and “contractual entropy” (the level of legal and factual uncertainty), arguing that high-distance, high-entropy AI-mediated agreements may be better addressed through tort law rather than traditional contract doctrine. The Article concludes by reflecting on how LLM-based contracting may reshape the human conviviality historically central to contractual exchange.

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