Law Commons^™

Ethical Algorithms: Navigating Ai In Legal Practice For A Just Jurisprudence, Bree'ara Murphy, Rachel Gadra Rankin, Joseph Rios

Law Review Blog Posts

Exploring the professional obligations practitioners may face in light of developing AI technology by examining state and federal model rule language, current judicial treatment of AI, and AI best practices.

The Role Of Ethical Principles In Ai Startups, James Bessen, Stephen Michael Impink, Robert Seamans

Faculty Scholarship

Do high-tech startups benefit from developing more ethical AI? AI startups implement policies and take actions to manage ethical issues associated with data collection, storage, and usage and adapt to the norms of their industry. This paper describes these startups' ethics-related actions, including ethical AI policy adoption, and examines how these actions relate to startup performance. We find that merely adopting an ethical AI policy (i.e., a less costly signal) does not relate to increased performance. However, there is evidence that investors reward startups that take more costly preventative pro-ethics actions, like seeking expert guidance, training employees about unconscious bias, …

Climate Justice In The Anthropocene And Its Relationship With Science And Technology: The Importance Of Ethics Of Responsibility, Paolo Davide Farah, Alessio Lo Giudice

Articles

Climate change is a global phenomenon. Therefore, globalization is the necessary hermeneutical horizon to develop an analysis of the metamorphosis climate change could cause at a political, social, and economic level. Within this horizon, this Article shows how the relationship between the concept of the Anthropocene epoch and the request for justice allows for framing a climate-justice and intergenerational equity–focused political interpretation of the effects of climate change. In order to avoid reducing such an interpretation to merely an ideological critique of capitalism, the conception of climate justice needs to be grounded in a rational, ethical model. This Article proposes …

Ethical Ai In American Policing, Elizabeth E. Joh

Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies

We know there are problems in the use of artificial intelligence in policing, but we don’t quite know what to do about them. One can also find many reports and white papers today offering principles for the responsible use of AI systems by the government, civil society organizations, and the private sector. Yet, largely missing from the current debate in the United States is a shared framework for thinking about the ethical and responsible use of AI that is specific to policing. There are many AI policy guidance documents now, but their value to the police is limited. Simply repeating …

Ethical Ai Development: Evidence From Ai Startups, James Bessen, Stephen Michael Impink, Lydia Reichensperger, Robert Seamans

Faculty Scholarship

Artificial Intelligence startups use training data as direct inputs in product development. These firms must balance numerous trade-offs between ethical issues and data access without substantive guidance from regulators or existing judicial precedence. We survey these startups to determine what actions they have taken to address these ethical issues and the consequences of those actions. We find that 58% of these startups have established a set of AI principles. Startups with data-sharing relationships with high-technology firms; that were impacted by privacy regulations; or with prior (non-seed) funding from institutional investors are more likely to establish ethical AI principles. Lastly, startups …

The Promise And Limits Of Lawfulness: Inequality, Law, And The Techlash, Salomé Viljoen

Articles

In response to widespread skepticism about the recent rise of “tech ethics”, many critics have called for legal reform instead. In contrast with the “ethics response”, critics consider the “lawfulness response” more capable of disciplining the excesses of the technology industry. In fact, both are simultaneously vulnerable to industry capture and capable of advancing a more democratic egalitarian agenda for the information economy. Both ethics and law offer a terrain of contestation, rather than a predetermined set of commitments by which to achieve more democratic and egalitarian technological production. In advancing this argument, the essay focuses on two misunderstandings common …

Trust In And Ethical Design Of Carebots: The Case For Ethics Of Care, Gary Kok Yew Chan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The paper has two main objectives: to examine the challenges arising from the use of carebots as well as to discuss how the design of carebots can deal with these challenges. First, it notes that the use of carebots to take care of the physical and mental health of the elderly, children and the disabled as well as to serve as assistive tools and social companions encounter a few main challenges. They relate to the extent of the care robots’ ability to care for humans, potential deception by robot morphology and communications, (over)reliance on or attachment to robots, and the …

Take Note: Teaching Law Students To Be Responsible Stewards Of Technology, Kristen E. Murray

Catholic University Law Review

The modern lawyer cannot practice without some deployment of technology; practical and ethical obligations have made technological proficiency part of what it means to be practice-ready. These obligations complicate the question of what constitutes best practices in law school.

Today’s law schools are filled with students who are digital natives who don’t necessarily leverage technology in maximally efficient ways, and faculty who span multiple generations, with varying amounts of skepticism about modern technology. Students are expected to use technology to read, prepare for class, take notes, and study for and take final exams. Professors might use technology to teach or …

Mitochondrial Replacement Therapy: Let The Science Decide, Sabrina K. Glavota

Michigan Technology Law Review

Mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT) is an in vitro fertilization technique designed to prevent women who are carriers of mitochondrial diseases from passing on these heritable genetic diseases to their children. It is an innovative assisted reproductive technology that is only legal in a small number of countries. The United States has essentially stagnated all opportunities for research and clinical trials on MRT through a rider in H.R.2029 – Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016. The rider bans clinical trials on all therapies in which a human embryo is intentionally altered to include a heritable genetic modification. This note argues that the rider …

From Automation To Autonomy: Legal And Ethical Responsibility Gaps In Artificial Intelligence Innovation, David Nersessian, Ruben Mancha

Michigan Technology Law Review

The increasing prominence of artificial intelligence (AI) systems in daily life and the evolving capacity of these systems to process data and act without human input raise important legal and ethical concerns. This article identifies three primary AI actors in the value chain (innovators, providers, and users) and three primary types of AI (automation, augmentation, and autonomy). It then considers responsibility in AI innovation from two perspectives: (i) strict liability claims arising out of the development, commercialization, and use of products with built-in AI capabilities (designated herein as “AI artifacts”); and (ii) an original research study on the ethical practices …

As The Role Of The Driver Changes With Autonomous Vehicle Technology, So, Too, Must The Law Change, Nanci K. Carr

St. Mary's Law Journal

Getting a driver’s license is a highly anticipated rite of passage for most teenagers. Being alone behind the wheel, in control of a 3,000-pound machine, is an honor, a privilege, and a sign of adult responsibility. How will that change when driver’s licenses become licenses “to cause technology to engage” with the increased use of autonomous cars? Will driver’s education courses, with their focus on safety rules and defensive driving techniques, be eliminated if all a vehicle operator needs to do is push a button and the vehicle does the rest? While arguably autonomous cars are safer, they will not …

Tech Policy And Legal Theory Syllabus, Yafit Lev-Aretz, Nizan Packin

Open Educational Resources

Technology has changed dramatically over the last couple of decades. Currently, virtually all business industries are powered by large quantities of data. The potential as well as actual uses of business data, which oftentimes includes personal user data, raise complex issues of informed consent and data protection. This course will explore many of these complex issues, with the goal of guiding students into thinking about tech policy from a broad ethical perspective as well as preparing students to responsibly conduct themselves in different areas and industries in a world growingly dominated by technology.

From The Tree Of Knowledge And The Golem Of Prague To Kosher Autonomous Cars: The Ethics Of Artificial Intelligence Through Jewish Eyes, Nachshon Goltz, John Zeleznikow, Tracey Dowdeswell

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This article discusses the regulation of artificial intelligence from a Jewish perspective, with an emphasis on the regulation of machine learning and its application to autonomous vehicles and machine learning. Through the Biblical story of Adam and Eve as well as Golem legends from Jewish folklore, we derive several basic principles that underlie a Jewish perspective on the moral and legal personhood of robots and other artificially intelligent agents. We argue that religious ethics in general, and Jewish ethics in particular, show us that the dangers of granting moral personhood to robots and in particular to autonomous vehicles lie not …

Ethical Implications Of Forensic Genealogy In Criminal Cases, Solana Lund

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

The use of forensic genealogy to solve criminal cases is likely to increase in the coming years, especially given its success in solving cold cases. While its potential for good is impressive, there are also legitimate ethical concerns that need to be addressed. As society sees an increase in the use of forensic genealogy and DTC databases in criminal investigations as well as an increase in the media attention it garners, there will be more discussion regarding ethical implications. Legal scholars say that it is only a matter of time before courts weigh in on the privacy of DNA and …

Regulating Personal Data Usage In Covid-19 Control Conditions, Mark Findlay, Nydia Remolina

Centre for AI & Data Governance

As the COVID-19 health pandemic ebbs and flows world-wide, governments and private companies across the globe are utilising AI-assisted surveillance, reporting, mapping and tracing technologies with the intention of slowing the spread of the virus. These technologies have capacity to amass and share personal data for community control and citizen safety motivations that empower state agencies and inveigle citizen co-operation which could only be imagined outside times of real and present personal danger. While not cavilling with the short-term necessity for these technologies and the data they control, process and share in the health regulation mission (provided that the technology …

Ethics, Ai, Mass Data And Pandemic Challenges: Responsible Data Use And Infrastructure Application For Surveillance And Pre-Emptive Tracing Post-Crisis, Mark Findlay, Jia Yuan Loke, Nydia Remolina Leon, Yum Yin, Benjamin (Tan Renyan) Tham

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

As the COVID-19 health pandemic rages governments and private companies across the globe are utilising AI-assisted surveillance, reporting, mapping and tracing technologies with the intention of slowing the spread of the virus. These technologies have the capacity to amass personal data and share for community control and citizen safety motivations that empower state agencies and inveigle citizen co-operation which could only be imagined outside such times of real and present danger. While not cavilling with the short-term necessity for these technologies and the data they control, process and share in the health regulation mission, this paper argues that this infrastructure …

Regulating Care Robots, Valarie K. Blake

Law Faculty Scholarship

Care robots already assist the elderly in some nursing homes around the globe and could be in widespread use in hospitals and private homes sooner than we think. These robots promise great hope for patients: robots can provide increased independence, assistance with daily living, comfort and distraction during procedures, education, and companionship during vulnerable and lonely times in patients' lives. Despite these promising features, there are a number of concerns; care robots, designed with the aim of winning patient trust and affection, have unprecedented access to personal lives as well as recording and sensory capabilities beyond any human. They pose …

Ethical Testing In The Real World: Evaluating Physical Testing Of Adversarial Machine Learning, Kendra Albert, Maggie Delano, Jonathon Penney, Afsaneh Ragot, Ram Shankar Siva Kumar

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This paper critically assesses the adequacy and representativeness of physical domain testing for various adversarial machine learning (ML) attacks against computer vision systems involving human subjects. Many papers that deploy such attacks characterize themselves as “real world.” Despite this framing, however, we found the physical or real-world testing conducted was minimal, provided few details about testing subjects and was often conducted as an afterthought or demonstration. Adversarial ML research without representative trials or testing is an ethical, scientific, and health/safety issue that can cause real harms. We introduce the problem and our methodology, and then critique the physical domain testing …

Flying Under The Radar: Two Decades Of Dna Testing At Ircc, Ida Ngueng Feze, Gabriel Marrocco, Miriam Pinkesz, Jacqueline Lacey, Yann Joly

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Since the early 1990s, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (formerly Citizenship and Immigration Canada) began using DNA testing technology in the processing of family reunification applications. Over the years, Canadian citizens, permanent residents, and family members living abroad have been increasingly suggested, or required to undergo DNA testing to either facilitate or enable them to reunite in Canada, under the family reunification procedure. This practice, although said to be rare, has since grown in popularity, and is used more extensively for applications coming from certain regions, including Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. Through analysis of recent case law, this paper …

Digital Colonialism: The 21st Century Scramble For Africa Through The Extraction And Control Of User Data And The Limitations Of Data Protection Laws, Danielle Coleman

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

As Western technology companies increasingly rely on user data globally, extensive data protection laws and regulations emerged to ensure ethical use of that data. These same protections, however, do not exist uniformly in the resource-rich, infrastructure-poor African countries, where Western tech seeks to establish its presence. These conditions provide an ideal landscape for digital colonialism.

Digital colonialism refers to a modern-day “Scramble for Africa” where largescale tech companies extract, analyze, and own user data for profit and market influence with nominal benefit to the data source. Under the guise of altruism, large scale tech companies can use their power and …

Ethical Machines?, Ariela Tubert

Seattle University Law Review

This Article explores the possibility of having ethical artificial intelligence. It argues that we face a dilemma in trying to develop artificial intelligence that is ethical: either we have to be able to codify ethics as a set of rules or we have to value a machine’s ability to make ethical mistakes so that it can learn ethics like children do. Neither path seems very promising, though perhaps by thinking about the difficulties with each we may come to a better understanding of artificial intelligence and ourselves.

Beyond Rights And Welfare: Democracy, Dialogue, And The Animal Welfare Act, Jessica Eisen

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The primary frameworks through which scholars have conceptualized legal protections for animals—animal “rights” and animal “welfare”—do not account for socio-legal transformation or democratic dialogue as central dynamics of animal law. The animal “rights” approach focuses on the need for limits or boundaries preventing animal use, while the animal “welfare” approach advocates balancing harm to animals against human benefits from animal use. Both approaches rely on abstract accounts of the characteristics animals are thought to share with humans and the legal protections they are owed as a result of those traits. Neither offers sustained attention to the dynamics of legal change …

The Growing Consumer Exposure To Nanotechnology In Everyday Products: Regulating Innovative Technologies In Light Of Lessons From The Past, Katharine Van Tassel

Katharine Van Tassel

This Article discusses the public health, regulatory, legal, and ethical issues raised by the developing appreciation of the negative physical effects and potential health risks associated with nanotech products, and is arranged as follows. After this Introduction, this Article describes the present scientific understanding of the health risks associated with the consumption of nanoparticles. Next, a summary of the existing FDA regulatory structure that governs food, dietary supplements, cosmetics, and sunscreens is provided along with an explanation of why these regulations fail to protect public health when applied to regulate the nanotech versions of these products. The Article goes on …

Defining Biometrics: Toward A Transnational Ethic Of Personal Information, Nicola Morrow

International Studies Honors Projects

Innovations in biotechnology, computer science, and engineering throughout the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries dramatically expanded possible modes of data-based surveillance and personal identification. More specifically, new technologies facilitated enormous growth in the biometrics sector. The response to the explosion of biometric technologies was two-fold. While intelligence agencies, militaries, and multinational corporations embraced new opportunities to fortify and expand security measures, many individuals objected to what they perceived as serious threats to privacy and bodily autonomy. These reactions spurred both further technological innovation, and a simultaneous proliferation of hastily drafted policies, laws, and regulations governing the collection, …

Artificial Intelligence Policy: A Primer And Roadmap, Ryan Calo

Articles

Talk of artificial intelligence is everywhere. People marvel at the capacity of machines to translate any language and master any game. Others condemn the use of secret algorithms to sentence criminal defendants or recoil at the prospect of machines gunning for blue, pink, and white-collar jobs. Some worry aloud that artificial intelligence will be humankind’s “final invention.” This essay, prepared in connection with UC Davis Law Review's 50th anniversary symposium, explains why AI is suddenly on everyone's mind and provides a roadmap to the major policy questions AI raises. The essay is designed to help policymakers, investors, technologists, scholars, and …

Patenting Frankenstein's Monster: Exploring The Patentability Of Artificial Organ Systems And Methodologies, Jordana Goodman

Faculty Scholarship

The conception of Frankenstein’s monster bridges the ever-narrowing divide between man and machine. Long before Congress codified Section 33(a) of the America Invents Act (“AIA”), Mary Shelley’s vague description of the monster’s creation has left people wondering: what defines a human organism? Through an analysis of patent law and scientific progress in the development of artificial organ systems, this paper explores the boundaries of patentable subject matter in the United States and attempts to clarify Congress’s determination that “no patent may issue on a claim directed to or encompassing a human organism.” Though patent law should incentivize development of artificial …

Emergent Ai, Social Robots And The Law: Security, Privacy And Policy Issues, Ramesh Subramanian

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

The rapid growth of AI systems has implications on a wide variety of fields. It can prove to be a boon to disparate fields such as healthcare, education, global logistics and transportation, to name a few. However, these systems will also bring forth far-reaching changes in employment, economy and security. As AI systems gain acceptance and become more commonplace, certain critical questions arise: What are the legal and security ramifications of the use of these new technologies? Who can use them, and under what circumstances? What is the safety of these systems? Should their commercialization be regulated? What are the …

The Ethical Debate On Drones, Anne Hopkins

Augustana Center for the Study of Ethics Essay Contest

No abstract provided.

The Rise Of Ethical License, Christi Guerrini, Margaret Curnette, Jacob S. Sherkow, Christopher Scott

Other Publications

The Broad Institute's recent licensing of its gene editing patent portfolio demonstrates how licenses can be used to restrict controversial applications of emerging technologies while society deliberates their implications.

Crashing Into The Unknown: An Examination Of Crash Optimization Algorithms Through The Two Lanes Of Ethics And Law, Jeffrey K. Gurney

Jeffrey K Gurney

Autonomous vehicles will encounter situations where an accident is truly unavoidable, requiring the vehicle to decide whom or what to hit. In such situations, the vehicle will make difficult ethical decisions based upon its programming — more specifically, how its crash-optimization algorithm is programmed.This Article examines crash-optimization algorithms from an ethical and legal standpoint through the lenses of six moral dilemmas. Ethically, the Article focuses specifically on utilitarian and Kantian ethics. Legally, the Article considers the tort and criminal law implications of crash-optimization algorithms.In addition, the Article discusses whether autonomous vehicles should even make ethical decisions. Concluding that they should …