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Full-Text Articles in Law
Moving Toward Personalized Law, Cary Coglianese
Moving Toward Personalized Law, Cary Coglianese
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Rules operate as a tool of governance by making generalizations, thereby cutting down on government officials’ need to make individual determinations. But because they are generalizations, rules can result in inefficient or perverse outcomes due to their over- and under-inclusiveness. With the aid of advances in machine-learning algorithms, however, it is becoming increasingly possible to imagine governments shifting away from a predominant reliance on general rules and instead moving toward increased reliance on precise individual determinations—or on “personalized law,” to use the term Omri Ben-Shahar and Ariel Porat use in the title of their 2021 book. Among the various technological, …
Algorithm Vs. Algorithm, Cary Coglianese, Alicia Lai
Algorithm Vs. Algorithm, Cary Coglianese, Alicia Lai
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Critics raise alarm bells about governmental use of digital algorithms, charging that they are too complex, inscrutable, and prone to bias. A realistic assessment of digital algorithms, though, must acknowledge that government is already driven by algorithms of arguably greater complexity and potential for abuse: the algorithms implicit in human decision-making. The human brain operates algorithmically through complex neural networks. And when humans make collective decisions, they operate via algorithms too—those reflected in legislative, judicial, and administrative processes. Yet these human algorithms undeniably fail and are far from transparent. On an individual level, human decision-making suffers from memory limitations, fatigue, …
Regulating New Tech: Problems, Pathways, And People, Cary Coglianese
Regulating New Tech: Problems, Pathways, And People, Cary Coglianese
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New technologies bring with them many promises, but also a series of new problems. Even though these problems are new, they are not unlike the types of problems that regulators have long addressed in other contexts. The lessons from regulation in the past can thus guide regulatory efforts today. Regulators must focus on understanding the problems they seek to address and the causal pathways that lead to these problems. Then they must undertake efforts to shape the behavior of those in industry so that private sector managers focus on their technologies’ problems and take actions to interrupt the causal pathways. …
Administrative Law In The Automated State, Cary Coglianese
Administrative Law In The Automated State, Cary Coglianese
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In the future, administrative agencies will rely increasingly on digital automation powered by machine learning algorithms. Can U.S. administrative law accommodate such a future? Not only might a highly automated state readily meet longstanding administrative law principles, but the responsible use of machine learning algorithms might perform even better than the status quo in terms of fulfilling administrative law’s core values of expert decision-making and democratic accountability. Algorithmic governance clearly promises more accurate, data-driven decisions. Moreover, due to their mathematical properties, algorithms might well prove to be more faithful agents of democratic institutions. Yet even if an automated state were …
Regulation Of Algorithmic Tools In The United States, Christopher S. Yoo, Alicia Lai
Regulation Of Algorithmic Tools In The United States, Christopher S. Yoo, Alicia Lai
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Policymakers in the United States have just begun to address regulation of artificial intelligence technologies in recent years, gaining momentum through calls for additional research funding, piece-meal guidance, proposals, and legislation at all levels of government. This Article provides an overview of high-level federal initiatives for general artificial intelligence (AI) applications set forth by the U.S. president and responding agencies, early indications from the incoming Biden Administration, targeted federal initiatives for sector-specific AI applications, pending federal legislative proposals, and state and local initiatives. The regulation of the algorithmic ecosystem will continue to evolve as the United States continues to search …
Transparency And Algorithmic Governance, Cary Coglianese, David Lehr
Transparency And Algorithmic Governance, Cary Coglianese, David Lehr
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Machine-learning algorithms are improving and automating important functions in medicine, transportation, and business. Government officials have also started to take notice of the accuracy and speed that such algorithms provide, increasingly relying on them to aid with consequential public-sector functions, including tax administration, regulatory oversight, and benefits administration. Despite machine-learning algorithms’ superior predictive power over conventional analytic tools, algorithmic forecasts are difficult to understand and explain. Machine learning’s “black-box” nature has thus raised concern: Can algorithmic governance be squared with legal principles of governmental transparency? We analyze this question and conclude that machine-learning algorithms’ relative inscrutability does not pose a …
A Truly “Top Task”: Rulemaking And Its Accessibility On Agency Websites, Cary Coglianese
A Truly “Top Task”: Rulemaking And Its Accessibility On Agency Websites, Cary Coglianese
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Government websites provide an important location for public access and participation in the governmental process. However, despite a growing body of research on agency websites, researchers have so far ignored agency websites as a method of public contact over rulemaking. In this article, I report results from two systematic surveys conducted on regulatory agencies’ websites which reveal how much more agencies could do to improve public access to rulemaking. Agencies commonly succumb to pressures to organize their websites around their “top tasks”—but, regrettably, they too often define these key tasks in terms of the volume of user demand for information …