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Full-Text Articles in Law

Artificial Financial Intelligence, William Magnuson Jul 2020

Artificial Financial Intelligence, William Magnuson

Faculty Scholarship

Recent advances in the field of artificial intelligence have revived long-standing debates about what happens when robots become smarter than humans. Will they destroy us? Will they put us all out of work? Will they lead to a world of techno-savvy haves and techno-ignorant have-nots? These debates have found particular resonance in finance, where computers already play a dominant role. High-frequency traders, quant hedge funds, and robo-advisors all represent, to a greater or lesser degree, real-world instantiations of the impact that artificial intelligence is having on the field. This Article will argue that the primary danger of artificial intelligence in …


A Third-Party Doctrine For Digital Metadata, H. Brian Holland Apr 2020

A Third-Party Doctrine For Digital Metadata, H. Brian Holland

Faculty Scholarship

For more than four decades, the third-party doctrine was understood as a bright-line, categorical rule: there is no legitimate privacy interest in any data that is voluntarily disclosed or conveyed to a third party. But this simple rule has dramatic effects in a world of ubiquitous networked computing, mobile technologies, and the commodification of information. The digital devices that facilitate our daily participation in modern society are connected through automated infrastructures that are designed to generate vast quantities of data, nearly all of which is captured, utilized, and stored by third-party service providers. Under a plain reading of the third-party …


Automation In Moderation, Hannah Bloch-Wehba Mar 2020

Automation In Moderation, Hannah Bloch-Wehba

Faculty Scholarship

This Article assesses recent efforts to encourage online platforms to use automated means to prevent the dissemination of unlawful online content before it is ever seen or distributed. As lawmakers in Europe and around the world closely scrutinize platforms’ “content moderation” practices, automation and artificial intelligence appear increasingly attractive options for ridding the Internet of many kinds of harmful online content, including defamation, copyright infringement, and terrorist speech. Proponents of these initiatives suggest that requiring platforms to screen user content using automation will promote healthier online discourse and will aid efforts to limit Big Tech’s power.

In fact, however, the …


Can Algorithms Promote Fair Use?, Peter K. Yu Mar 2020

Can Algorithms Promote Fair Use?, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

In the past few years, advances in big data, machine learning and artificial intelligence have generated many questions in the intellectual property field. One question that has attracted growing attention concerns whether algorithms can be better deployed to promote fair use in copyright law. The debate on the feasibility of developing automated fair use systems is not new; it can be traced back to more than a decade ago. Nevertheless, recent technological advances have invited policymakers and commentators to revisit this earlier debate.

As part of the Symposium on "Intelligent Entertainment: Algorithmic Generation and Regulation of Creative Works," this Article …


Access To Algorithms, Hannah Bloch-Wehba Mar 2020

Access To Algorithms, Hannah Bloch-Wehba

Faculty Scholarship

Federal, state, and local governments increasingly depend on automated systems — often procured from the private sector — to make key decisions about civil rights and civil liberties. When individuals affected by these decisions seek access to information about the algorithmic methodologies that produced them, governments frequently assert that this information is proprietary and cannot be disclosed.

Recognizing that opaque algorithmic governance poses a threat to civil rights and liberties, scholars have called for a renewed focus on transparency and accountability for automated decision making. But scholars have neglected a critical avenue for promoting public accountability and transparency for automated …


The Internet As A Speech Machine And Other Myths Confounding Section 230 Reform, Danielle K. Citron, Mary Anne Franks Jan 2020

The Internet As A Speech Machine And Other Myths Confounding Section 230 Reform, Danielle K. Citron, Mary Anne Franks

Faculty Scholarship

A robust public debate is currently underway about the responsibility of online platforms. We have long called for this discussion, but only recently has it been seriously taken up by legislators and the public. The debate begins with a basic question: should platforms should be responsible for user-generated content? If so, under what circumstances? What exactly would such responsibility look like? Under consideration is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act—a provision originally designed to encourage tech companies to clean up “offensive” online content. The public discourse around Section 230, however, is riddled with misconceptions. As an initial matter, many …


A United States Perspective On Digital Single Market Directive Art. 17, Jane C. Ginsburg Jan 2020

A United States Perspective On Digital Single Market Directive Art. 17, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

To a US appraiser, article 17 of the Digital Single Market Directive suggests the EU has learned from American mistakes (and from its own) in the allocation of internet intermediaries’ liability for hosting and communicating user-posted content. Before the DSM Directive, art. 14 of the 2000 eCommerce Directive set out a notice-and-takedown system very similar to the regime provided in 17 U.S.C. section 512(c). Both regimes replaced the normal copyright default, which requires authorization to exploit works, with a limitation on the liability of service providers who complied with statutory prerequisites. Because the limitation ensured that service providers would not …


Nascent Competitors, C. Scott Hemphill, Tim Wu Jan 2020

Nascent Competitors, C. Scott Hemphill, Tim Wu

Faculty Scholarship

A nascent competitor is a firm whose prospective innovation represents a serious threat to an incumbent. Protecting such competition is a critical mission for antitrust law, given the outsized role of unproven outsiders as innovators and the uniquely potent threat they often pose to powerful entrenched firms. In this Article, we identify nascent competition as a distinct analytical category and outline a program of antitrust enforcement to protect it. We make the case for enforcement even where the ultimate competitive significance of the target is uncertain, and explain why a contrary view is mistaken as a matter of policy and …


Cyberattacks And The Constitution, Matthew C. Waxman Jan 2020

Cyberattacks And The Constitution, Matthew C. Waxman

Faculty Scholarship

Contrary to popular view, cyberattacks alone are rarely exercises of constitutional war powers – and they might never be. They are often instead best understood as exercises of other powers pertaining to nonwar military, foreign affairs, intelligence, and foreign commerce, for example. Although this more fine-grained, fact-specific conception of cyberattacks leaves room for broad executive leeway in some contexts, it also contains a strong constitutional basis for legislative regulation of cyber operations.


Transparency After Carpenter, Hannah Bloch-Wehba Jan 2020

Transparency After Carpenter, Hannah Bloch-Wehba

Faculty Scholarship

This brief invited response to Professor Matthew Tokson’s Foulston-Siefkin lecture on the Supreme Court's decision in Carpenter v. United States makes two contributions. First, I highlight the social, political, and economic factors at play in the Carpenter decision. The Carpenter Court recognized, in particular, that digital surveillance implicates the rights of more than just criminal suspects: it poses unique and unappreciated threats to public governance of policing. The decision, I argue, reflects longstanding preoccupations in Fourth Amendment decisions with protecting the “public” — particularly innocent third parties — from intrusive and baseless investigations. In so doing, I situate Professor Tokson’s …


National Cybersecurity Innovation, Tabrez Y. Ebrahim Jan 2020

National Cybersecurity Innovation, Tabrez Y. Ebrahim

Faculty Scholarship

National cybersecurity plays a crucial role in protecting our critical infrastructure, such as telecommunication networks, the electricity grid, and even financial transactions. Most discussions about promoting national cybersecurity focus on governance structures, international relations, and political science. In contrast, this Article proposes a different agenda and one that promotes the use of innovation mechanisms for technological advancement. By promoting inducements for technological developments, such innovation mechanisms encourage the advancement of national cybersecurity solutions. In exploring possible solutions, this Article asks whether the government or markets can provide national cybersecurity innovation. This inquiry is a fragment of a much larger literature …


Cyber Mobs, Disinformation, And Death Videos: The Internet As It Is (And As It Should Be), Danielle K. Citron Jan 2020

Cyber Mobs, Disinformation, And Death Videos: The Internet As It Is (And As It Should Be), Danielle K. Citron

Faculty Scholarship

Fiction and visual representations can alter our understanding of human experiences and struggles. They help us understand human frailties and suffering in a visceral way. Nick Drnaso’s graphic novel Sabrina does that in spades. In Sabrina, a woman is murdered by a misogynist, and a video of her execution is leaked. Conspiracy theorists deem her murder a hoax. A cyber mob smears the woman’s loved ones as crisis actors, posts death threats, and spreads their personal information. The attacks continue until a shooting massacre redirects the cyber mob’s wrath to other mourners. Sabrina captures the breathtaking velocity of disinformation online …


The Promise And Limits Of Cyber Power In International Law: Remarks, Monica Hakimi, Ann Väljataga, Zhixiong Huang, Charles Allen, Sue Robertson, Doug Wilson Jan 2020

The Promise And Limits Of Cyber Power In International Law: Remarks, Monica Hakimi, Ann Väljataga, Zhixiong Huang, Charles Allen, Sue Robertson, Doug Wilson

Faculty Scholarship

Hi, everyone. I am Monica Hakimi from the University of Michigan Law School, and I would like to welcome you to our panel on cyber power and its limits. The topic almost does not need an introduction. We all know just from reading the news that our collective dependence on cyberspace is also a huge vulnerability, and state and non-state actors exploit this vulnerability to do one another harm. They use cyber technologies not just to spy on one another, but also, for example, to interfere in national elections, to steal trade secrets or other valuable information, to disrupt the …