Three Laws

Lessig on Whether the First Amendment Protects Replicants @lessig @Harvard_Law

Lawrence Lessig, Harvard Law School, is publishing The First Amendment Does Not Protect Replicants in Social Media and Democracy (Lee Bollinger & Geoffrey Stone, eds., Oxford 2022), Forthcoming. Here is the abstract.

As the semantic capability of computer systems increases, the law should resolve clearly whether the First Amendment protects machine speech. This essay argues it should not be read to reach sufficiently sophisticated — "replicant" — speech.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

Norton on Robotic Speakers and Human Listerners

Helen L. Norton, University of Colorado Law School, has published Robotic Speakers and Human Listeners at 41 Seattle University Law Review 1145 (2018). Here is the abstract.

In their new book, Robotica, Ron Collins and David Skover assert that we protect speech not so much because of its value to speakers but instead because of its affirmative value to listeners. If we assume that the First Amendment is largely, if not entirely, about serving listeners’ interests—in other words, that it’s listeners all the way down—what would a listener-centered approach to robotic speech require? This short symposium essay briefly discusses the complicated and sometimes even dark side of robotic speech from a listener-centered perspective.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Lamo and Calo on Regulating Bot Speech @madeline_lamo @rcalo

Madeline Lamo and Ryan Calo, both of the University of Washington School of Law, have published Regulating Bot Speech. Here is the abstract.

We live in a world of artificial speakers with real impact. Chat bots befriend children in order to acquire marketing data. Robotic telemarketers laugh at the suggestion that they are not real. Russian social media bots foment sufficient political strife to merit a spotlight in Congressional hearings. Concerns over bot speech have led prominent figures in technology to call for regulation. Legislators have begun to heed these calls, drafting laws that would require online bots to clearly indicate that they are not human. This essay is the first to consider how efforts to regulate bot speech might fare under the First Amendment. At first blush, requiring a bot to self-disclose raises little in the way of free speech concerns — it does not censor speech per se, nor does it unmask the identity of the person behind the automated account. A deeper analysis, however, reveals several areas of First Amendment tension that any bot disclosure law would need to address. These include a poor fit between the disclosure requirement and the harms such a law would aim to address, the potential for unmasking anonymous speakers in the enforcement process, and the creation of a scaffolding for censorship by private actors and other governments. We offer recommendations for legislators who seek respond to the real risks autonomous speakers pose while avoiding these pitfalls.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.