The YTL Law and Justice Forum: AI and the Law

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The YTL Centre usually holds three 'Law and Justice' forums per year. These are one day events that discuss major questions of the day by bringing to bear inter-disciplinary perspectives from politics, philosophy and law.

On October 4th, 2019, the YTL Centre for Politics, Philosophy, and Law will present a special Law and Justice Forum on the topic of AI and the Law. The forum will be concerned with two broad issues: 1) the place of law in the regulation of Artificial Intelligence, and 2) the significance of Artificial Intelligence for legal regulation, with a special focus on its use within criminal law.

Among the questions to be addressed in the forum are the following:

• What are the principles governing whether AI should be subject to legal regulation, rather than codes of ethics or self-regulation?
• What are the challenges posed by AI in areas such as fundamental rights and legal liability?
• Does law need to stay technologically neutral in an age of rapid technological development?
• How does the law best fulfil its function of implementing precaution yet still enabling innovation?
• What is the place of AI – ‘algorithmic justice’ – in the criminal justice system?
• Should AI be used to implement ‘preventive criminal justice’?
• Can AI-driven preventive justice be squared with concerns about due process and the human rights of suspects?

 

These questions, and others, will be addressed in two panel discussions:

Programme:

2.00 – 3.30 The legal regulation of AI: Paul Nemitz (European Commission), with comments by Mercedes Bunz (King’s College London) and Jacob Turner (Fountain Court). Chair: Massimo Renzo (KCL).

3.45 – 5.15 AI and criminal law: Roger Brownsword (King’s College London) with comments by Sylvie Delacroix(Birmingham) and Annette Zimmermann (Princeton). Chair: John Tasioulas (KCL).

The forum will conclude with a lecture by Professor Roger Brownsword, addressing themes from his new book, “Law, Technology and Society”.

5.30 – 7.00 Lecture by Roger Brownsword “Rules, Regulation, and Technology".

 

Abstract of Professor Brownsword’s Lecture: The focus for this lecture is Law 3.0, this representing a regulatory mind-set (or framing) that is concerned not only that the content of rules of law should be fit for purpose but also that the most effective instruments, whether rules or non-rule technological measures (technical solutions), should be employed. Technocratic Law 3.0, thus, contrasts with ‘coherentist’ Law 1.0, where ‘thinking like a lawyer’ characteristically involves the application of general principles and treating the integrity of doctrine as desirable in itself; and it also contrasts with ‘regulatory-instrumentalist’ Law 2.0, where the fitness for purpose of rules (relative to regulatory policy) is central but without any thought that rules might not be the instrument of choice.

Drawing on the analysis and arguments in Law, Technology and Society: Re-imagining the Regulatory Environment, a five-stranded response to Law 3.0 is proposed: first, lawyers should treat the regulatory environment, including both normative and non-normative (techno-regulatory) measures, as their field of inquiry; secondly, a three-tiered scheme of regulatory responsibilities should provide the benchmarks for the legitimacy of regulatory measures; thirdly, these benchmarks should be embedded in a revised understanding of the Rule of Law, this applying to the full range of measures (whether rules or technical solutions) and to both public and private regulators; fourthly, a renewed form of coherentist thinking, reflecting the benchmarks of legitimacy, should become central to lawyering; and, finally, consideration should be given to designing institutions and institutional arrays that would keep these benchmarks in the foreground of regulatory decisions.

 

List of Speakers and Commentators:

• Professor Roger Brownsword, Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London

• Dr Mercedes Bunz, Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London

• Paul F. Nemitz, Principal Advisor in the Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers of the European Commission.

• Professor Sylvie Delacroix, Birmingham Law School 
  

• Jacob Turner, Barrister, Fountain Court Chambers

• Dr Annette Zimmermann, University Center for Human Values, Princeton University

 

 

 

Attendance for the entire event is not compulsory.

This event is open to the public and everybody is welcome to attend, though everyone must register.

Seats are allocated on a strictly first come, first served basis. 

If you find you can no longer attend please cancel your ticket registration, so that someone else can have your place.