"Agencies can still bring expertise; courts will listen. But statutory authority—not administrative aspiration—is the engine."

— Aditya Mohan, Founder, CEO & Philosopher-Scientist, Robometrics® Machines

Scene —  Statutory Hooks at Dawn 

The bait shed at the end of the pier sweated in the heat, its salt‑whitened boards the color of old bone. On a scarred table lay a ledger—observer fee — $710/day—circled twice in pencil beside a coffee cup wearing a ring like a tide mark. An oscillating fan ticked as it turned, stirring the smell of diesel and ice while gulls stitched the sky in slow white cursive. A handful of boat captains stood with their caps in their hands, boots leaving wet commas on the floor. Someone thumbed a cracked barometer; someone else flicked a silver scale from his knuckle.

Outside, the harbor clinked and sighed. Deck lights threw gold ladders across the water; a coil of rope shone like a sleeping serpent. The fan kept ticking. On a nail by the door hung a clipboard the color of old kelp, its checklist studded with verbs: fuel, ice, radio, permits. The captain took the pencil and added a new word, small but heavy as a sinker: hook. Heads nodded the way they do when a weather front moves through and leaves the horizon cleaner. Someone shouldered the door; it opened to a slab of morning and the low diesel cough of a world just altered by a single, simple line.

What Changed in Loper Bright

In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024), a group of commercial fishermen who regularly participate in the Atlantic herring fishery challenged a National Marine Fisheries Service rule that required industry-funded at-sea monitoring, estimated at $710 per day. The district court granted summary judgment for the government, and the D.C. Circuit affirmed—both applying Chevron deference to uphold the agency’s reading of its authority under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. The Supreme Court granted review (consolidating Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce, No. 22-1219) and, in a 6–3 decision, overruled Chevron (1984). Citing APA § 706, the Court held that reviewing courts must exercise independent judgment on questions of law; statutory ambiguity does not itself delegate interpretive power to agencies.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority. Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch filed concurrences. Justice Elena Kagan dissented, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson as to Relentless; Justice Jackson did not participate in Loper Bright (No. 22-451). The Court emphasized that overruling Chevron does not automatically disturb the specific outcomes of prior cases that relied on it; those must be challenged and resolved under ordinary principles of stare decisis.

Why This Matters for AI (and Why It’s Good)

AI moves on weekly release cycles; federal rulemaking moves in years. Agencies struggle to keep drafts current while AI models, modalities, and attack surfaces shift monthly. Loper Bright confronts that mismatch: when technology outruns deference, the safer brake is the Constitution and enacted statutes—not open‑ended reinterpretation. Courts can now demand a clear hook in positive law before agencies impose AI obligations—no improvising sweeping mandates from phrases written for teletype machines. That discipline accelerates responsible innovation by replacing shifting deference with predictable constraints. In this sense, law becomes an accelerator of technology: clarity speeds adoption inside known guardrails (see “Law as an Accelerator of Technology,” https://www.robometricsagi.com/blog/ai-policy/law-as-an-accelerator-of-technology).

Existing Law—Ready Now (No New Rules Required)

References: The Phone Booth That Became Cyberspace — Katz and AI‑Model Privacy; Consent Not Coercion — Boston 1641 to AI; Law of the Land to Law of the AI Model.
After Loper Bright, agencies cannot stretch ambiguous text to regulate AI; courts will insist on clear statutory hooks (APA § 706). Most AI disputes can be resolved under durable doctrines we already have: civil‑rights and employment (Title VII); credit and background checks (ECOA/Reg B, FCRA); consumer protection (FTC Act § 5); due process and evidence (APA hard‑look; Daubert; Brady); privacy and surveillance (the Fourth and First Amendments); and torts/contracts/DTSA for safety and secrets. Agency expertise may still earn Skidmore weight, and Kisor cabins—without erasing—deference to an agency’s interpretation of its own regulations. For how these doctrines can speed responsible deployment, see Law as an Accelerator of Technology.

Design Rules After Chevron

Post‑Loper Bright, any AI rule must trace each obligation to clear text: who is covered, what conduct is regulated, and which remedies apply. Courts will test those claims with the record in hand—no thumb on the regulator’s scale. Guidance and policy statements still matter, but they will be weighed for reasoning, not authority. For developers and deployers, the upshot is a lower deference hurdle when challenging overbroad rules and a push toward durable sources of law—statutes and the Constitution—rather than transient circulars and FAQs.

Federalism, Pace, and Practicalities

Expect more litigation and, for a time, a patchwork of state approaches. That can be a feature: states pilot ideas; Congress legislates with precision when consensus emerges; and courts harmonize conflicts case by case. Meanwhile, the major‑questions doctrine and the nondelegation doctrine reinforce Loper Bright: sweeping AI mandates require unmistakable congressional authorization. In government use, familiar constitutional tests still apply—particularity and warrants for surveillance; explainability and contestability before depriving liberty or property; nondiscrimination in adjudication; and open‑court principles for evidence. “Goodbye, Chevron” does not stall AI—it locates responsibility where it belongs: elected lawmakers set the rules; independent judges say what those rules mean; innovators build within them.

Practical Playbook (Brief)

• For agencies: Cite the statute section; define scope, thresholds, and remedies; publish model‑use impact analyses; produce adjudicable records (data lineage, validation, error rates); and use protective orders to enable adversarial testing of sensitive code.

• For builders: Map features to existing statutes; keep model cards and audit logs; maintain adverse‑action reason libraries; design for notice, appeal, and human‑in‑the‑loop review; align terms with consumer‑protection law; and prepare Daubert‑grade evaluations.
  These habits make compliance predictable and speed deployment without waiting on sweeping new rules.

The Through‑Line
From a crossed‑out defer to a clarified duty, Loper Bright resets the balance for an algorithmic age. Agencies can still bring expertise; courts will listen. But statutory authority—not administrative aspiration—is the engine. For AI, that means fewer surprise mandates, stronger constitutional backstops, and a faster path from idea to deployment inside known legal lanes—law not as drag on progress, but as the roadway that makes speed safe.