Day: May 17, 2022

Stuurman & Lachaud on Regulating AI: A Label To Complete the Proposed Act on Artificial Intelligence

Kees Stuurman (Tilburg Law School) and Eric Lachaud have posted “Regulating AI. A Label To Complete the Proposed Act on Artificial Intelligence” on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

AI regulation is emerging in the EU. The European authorities, NGOs and academics have already issued a series of proposals to accommodate the ‘development and uptake of AI’ with an ‘appropriate ethical and legal framework’ and promote what the European Commission has called an ‘ecosystem of trust’. In the spring of 2020, the European Commission submitted a legislative proposal for public consultation including four options ranging from “soft law only” to a broad scope of mandatory requirements and combinations thereof, for addressing the risks linked to the development and use of certain AI applications. One year later, the Commission unveiled on 21 April 2021 the EU Act on Artificial Intelligence. The proposal primarily focuses on regulating ’high-risk’ systems through mandatory requirements and prohibition measures. This approach leaves a wide range of AI-systems, with potentially serious impact on fundamental rights, merely unregulated as regards specifically AI related risks. This paper explores the boundaries of the impact of the Act for primarily non-high-risk systems and discuss the options for introducing a voluntary labeling scheme for enhancing protection against the risks of medium and low risk AI systems.

Atik on Quantum Computing and the Legal Imagination

Jeffery Atik (Loyola Law School Los Angeles) has posted “Quantum Computing and the Legal Imagination” (18 SciTech Lawyer 12 (2022)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

Powerful and cost-effective quantum computers will soon arrive. The existence of quantum computers – and their special capacities – will stimulate a search for legal applications. Quantum computing – when deployed together with artificial intelligence – will
(1) enable new legal tools,
(2) permit modeling of complex social and economic relations that can be used to inform legal determinations,
(3) raise new legal, ethical and distributional challenges and
(4) stimulate the legal imagination to reach new – and initially strange – insights and understandings.
The implementation of quantum computing in law will depend on the location of quantum advantage, where quantum computers outperform conventional computers. Mathematicians can already teach us about the characteristics of certain problem types and suggest which of these will be favorable ground for quantum advantage. Lawyer-engineers will need to match the identified mathematical characteristics of decisions amenable to quantum advantage to real-world legal concerns. Quantum computing will drive further developments in operationalizing law and facilitating legal prediction. Many of these changes will take place ‘under the hood’ and will not demand a thorough understanding of quantum theory, but the practitioner will experience a different feel from the technology. Antitrust and bank regulation are examples of fields where quantum computing can be expected to have an important impact. Quantum computing, like the digital technologies that arose during the past 30 years, might have the unfortunate effect of exacerbating wealth and power differentials. That said, quantum computing will have a stimulating effect on our minds, including our legal imagination. It will lead us to look for new approaches, new ways of thinking about problems and their solutions, and new roles for law.

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