Three Laws Blog: Law and Artificial Intelligence

Denvir, Fletcher, Hay, and Pleasence on Mitigating the Constitutional & Rule of Law Risks Associated With the Ue of AI in the Legal Domain @UCLLaws

Catrina Denvir, Monash University, Tristan Fletcher, University College London, Jonathan Hoy, and Pascoe Pleasence, University College London, have published The Devil in the Detail: Mitigating the Constitutional & Rule of Law Risks Associated with the Use of Artificial Intelligence in the Legal Domain. Here is the abstract.

Over the last decade increased emphasis has been placed on the role that artificial intelligence (AI) will play in disrupting the practice of law. Although considerable attention has been given to the practical task of designing a computer to ‘think like a lawyer’, a number of related issues merit further inquiry. Of these, the risks that AI presents to the constitutionally protected procedural and substantive dimensions of justice deserve particular attention. In this paper, we consider the public and private application of AI in the administration of justice and the provision of legal services. We observe that the imposition of AI in certain legal contexts and settings has the potential to silence discourse between actors and agents, subvert the rule of law, and directly and indirectly threaten constitutional rights. In substantiating these observations, in Part I we begin by contextualizing recent developments in legal technology. Tracing the evolution of rule-based AI approaches through to modern data-driven techniques, in Part II we explore how AI systems have sought to represent law, drawing on the domains of: (a) judicial interpretation and reasoning; (b) bargaining and transacting, and; (c) enforcement and compliance, and we illustrate how these representations have been constrained by the AI approach used. In Part III we assess the use of AI in legal services, focusing specifically on implications that are posed in respect of the protection of constitutional rights and adherence to the rule of law. Finally, in Part IV we examine the pragmatic challenges that arise in balancing the risks and rewards of AI technologies in the legal domain, and we consider the issues that should shape and that are likely to shape use. We conclude by proposing the development of a ‘rule of legal AI’ designed to solidify the shared values that ought to govern future development in the field.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Puaschunder on Artificial Intelligence's Razor's Edge: On the Future of Democracy and Society in the Artificial Age

Julia M. Puaschunder, Harvard University; The New School for Social Research; Columbia University; Princeton University; George Washington University Center for International Business Education and Research; The New School--Bernard Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis, has published On Artificial Intelligence’s Razor’s Edge: On the Future of Democracy and Society in the Artificial Age in the RAIS Conference Proceedings - The 12th International RAIS Conference on Social Sciences & Humanities. Here is the abstract.

The introduction of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in our contemporary society imposes historically unique challenges for humankind. The emerging autonomy of AI holds unique potentials of eternal life of robots, AI and algorithms alongside unprecedented economic superiority, data storage and computational advantages. However, the introduction of AI to society also raises ethical questions. What is the social impact of robots, algorithms, blockchain and AI entering the workforce and our daily lives on the economy and human society? Should AI become eternal or is there a virtue in switching off AI at a certain point? If so, we may have to define a ‘virtue of killing’ and a ‘right to destroy’ that may draw from legal but also philosophical sources to answer the question how to handle the abyss of killing with ethical grace and fair style. In light of robots already having gained citizenship and being attributed as quasi-human under Common Law jurisdiction, should AI and robots be granted full citizen rights – such as voting rights? Or should we simply reap the benefits of AI and consider to define a democracy with different classes having diversified access to public choice and voting – as practiced in the ancient Athenian city state, which became the cradle of Western civilization and democratic traditions spread around the globe. Or should we legally justify AI slaves to economically reap their benefits, as was common in ancient Rome, which became the Roman Law legal foundation for Continental and some of Scandinavian Law traditions and which inspired very many different codifications around the world. Finally, we may also draw from the Code Napoléon, the French Code Civil established under Napoleon in 1804, which defined male and female into two classes of human with substantial right and power differences, and – to this day – accounts for one of the few documents that have influenced the whole world in legal and societal ways. In asking critical questions and unraveling the ethical boundary conditions of our future artificial world, the paper thereby takes a descriptive – afar from normative – theoretical angle targeted at aiding a successful introduction of AI into our contemporary workforce, democracy and society.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link.

Nemitz on Constitutional Democracy and Technology in the Age of AI @PaulNemitz

Paul Nemitz, European Commission; College of Europe, Brugge, has published Constitutional Democracy and Technology in the age of Artificial Intelligence at DOI 10.1098/RSTA.2018.0089 - Royal Society Philosophical Transactions A. Here is the abstract.

Given the foreseeable pervasiveness of Artificial Intelligence in modern societies, it is legitimate and necessary to ask the question how this new technology must be shaped to support the maintenance and strengthening of constitutional democracy. This paper first describes the four core elements of today's digital power concentration, which need to be seen in cumulation and which, seen together, are both a threat to democracy and to functioning markets. It then recalls the experience with the lawless internet and the relationship between technology and the law as it has developed in the internet economy and the experience with GDPR before it moves on to the key question for AI in democracy, namely which of the challenges of AI can be safely and with good conscience left to ethics, and which challenges of AI need to be addressed by rules which are enforceable and encompass the legitimacy of democratic process, thus laws. The paper closes with a call for a new culture of incorporating the principles of Democracy, Rule of law and Human Rights by design in AI and a three level technological impact assessment for new technologies like AI as a practical way forward for this purpose.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link.