PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Henry H. Perritt Jr.

Also known as Hank Perritt

Henry H. Perritt Jr. is an emeritus professor of law at Chicago-Kent College of Law whose writing on artificial intelligence runs from a 1987 article on evaluating employee terminations to recent studies of generative AI. Trained in aeronautical engineering at MIT, he earned a law degree at Georgetown in 1975 and served as deputy under secretary of labor in the Ford administration. During his years on the Villanova law faculty, from 1981 to 1997, he taught "Artificial Intelligence and Legal Reasoning", the first AI course at any American law school. After serving as dean of Chicago-Kent from 1997 to 2002, he turned in recent years to how generative AI affects copyright and the patent system, and in 2026 he tested DeepSeek, Claude, ChatGPT and Grok on a hypothetical employment case.

Timeline

  1. 1966–1976

    From MIT to the Labor Department

    He earns a B.S. in aeronautical engineering from MIT in 1966, a master's degree in management from MIT's Sloan School in 1970, and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 1975. From 1975 to 1976, during the Ford administration, he serves on the White House staff and as deputy under secretary of labor.

  2. 1981–1997

    Teaching AI at Villanova

    He joins Villanova University as a professor of law in 1981 and stays until 1997. There he teaches a course on "Artificial Intelligence and Legal Reasoning", the first artificial intelligence course at any American law school, and writes Employee Dismissal Law and Practice.

  3. March 1987

    AI for employee terminations

    In March 1987, he publishes "Artificial Intelligence Techniques for Evaluating Employee Terminations on a Personal Computer" in the Rutgers Computer & Technology Law Journal.

  4. By 1996

    Drafting electronic FOIA principles

    He serves on President Bill Clinton's Transition Team, working on telecommunications issues, and drafts principles for electronic dissemination of public information. Those principles form the core of the Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments that Congress adopts in 1996.

  5. 1997–2002

    Dean of Chicago-Kent

    He serves as dean of Chicago-Kent College of Law from 1997 to 2002, overseeing groups of law students in post-conflict reconstruction work in Bosnia and Kosovo. In 2002, he is the Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in Illinois's 10th District.

  6. 2024

    Robots as Pirates

    His 2024 Catholic University Law Review article "Robots as Pirates" weighs copyright claims by authors whose work trains generative AI engines. It concludes that such plaintiffs will have a hard time proving infringement, and predicts more pay walls and licensing collectives around original content.

  7. 2025–2026

    Generative AI and patents

    In 2025, he urges the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in the SMU Science and Technology Law Review to embrace generative AI for finding prior art. A 2026 article in the Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology argues that AI able to generate inventions raises the possibility that patents could one day become obsolete.

  8. Since 2020

    Professor emeritus at Chicago-Kent

    He becomes an emeritus professor of law at the Illinois Institute of Technology's Chicago-Kent College of Law in 2020. In 2026, his Nebraska Law Review article "Robot Wingman" tests DeepSeek, Claude, ChatGPT and Grok on a hypothetical employment-termination interview; the engines spot the major legal claims, but most of the cases they cite are non-existent or incorrectly referenced.

  1. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI from 1961 to 2025, with a year-by-year chart.
  2. The United States employs an estimated 53% of people in our data with a known employment countryOur estimates of where AI careers are concentrated now and how countries’ shares of dated positions changed over time.
  3. 46% of living people in our data with known birth and employment countries work outside their birth countryOur estimate of cross-border careers in AI, from country of birth and the country of each current organization.
  4. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionOur estimates of where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led, from education records in cited biographies.

Sources and credits

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  1. Henry H. Perritt Jr. | Chicago-Kent College of Law kentlaw.iit.edu. Checked 19 October 2026.
  2. Henry H. Perritt Jr. - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  3. "Artificial Intelligence Techniques for Evaluating Employee Termination" by Henry H. Perritt Jr. scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu. Checked 19 October 2026.
  4. "Robots as Pirates" by Henry H. Perritt Jr. scholarship.law.edu. Checked 19 October 2026.
  5. "Willful Ignorance or Embracing AI to Find Prior Art? USPTO Misses the Mark" by Henry H. Perritt Jr. scholar.smu.edu. Checked 19 October 2026.
  6. "Creative Destruction for the Patent System? Impact Of Generative AI" by Henry H. Perritt Jr. scholarship.law.umn.edu. Checked 19 October 2026.
  7. "Robot Wingman: Using AI to Assess an Employment Termination" by Henry H. Perritt Jr. digitalcommons.unl.edu. Checked 19 October 2026.