Henning Lahmann (Leiden U Centre Law and Digital Technologies) et al. have posted “The Fundamental Rights Risks of Countering Cognitive Warfare with Artificial Intelligence” (Final version accepted and forthcoming in Ethics & Information Technology) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

The article analyses proposed AI-supported systems to detect, monitor, and counter ‘cognitive warfare’ and critically examines the implications of such systems for fundamental rights and values. After explicating the notion of ‘cognitive warfare’ as used in contemporary public security discourse, it describes the emergence of AI as a novel tool expected to exacerbate the problem of adversarial activities against the online information ecosystems of democratic societies. In response, researchers and policymakers have proposed to utilise AI to devise countermeasures, ranging from AI-based early warning systems to state-run, internet-wide content moderation tools. These interventions, however, interfere, to different degrees, with fundamental rights and values such as privacy, freedom of expression, freedom of information, and self-determination. The proposed AI systems insufficiently account for the complexity of contemporary online information ecosystems, particularly the inherent difficulty in establishing causal links between ‘cognitive warfare’ campaigns and undesired outcomes. As a result, using AI to counter ‘cognitive warfare’ risks harming the very rights and values such measures purportedly seek to protect. Policymakers should focus less on seemingly quick technological fixes. Instead, they should invest in long-term strategies against information disorder in digital communication ecosystems that are solidly grounded in the preservation of fundamental rights.

Carolin Kemper (German Research Institute Public Administration) and Michael Kolain (German Research Institute Public Administration (FÖV Speyer)) have posted “K9 Police Robots: An Analysis Of Current Canine Robot Models Through The Lens Of Legitimate Citizen-Robot-State-Interaction” (UCLA Journal of Law and Technology Vol. 30 (2025), 1-95, https://uclajolt.com/k9-police-robots-vol-30-no-1/) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

The advent of a robotized police force has come: Boston Dynamics’ “Spot” patrols cities like Honolulu, investigates drug labs in the Netherlands, explores a burned building in danger of collapsing in Germany, and has already assisted the police in responding to a home invasion in New York City. Quadruped robots might soon be on sentry duty at US borders. The Department of Homeland Security has procured Ghost Robotics’ Vision 60—a model that can be equipped with different payloads, including a weapons system. Canine police robots may patrol public spaces, explore dangerous environments, and might even use force if equipped with guns or pepper spray. This new gadget is not unlike previous tools deployed by the police, especially surveillance equipment or mechanized help by other machines. Even though they slightly resemble the old- fashioned police dog, their functionalities and affordances are structurally different from K9 units: Canine robots capture data on their environment wherever they roam and they communicate with citizens, e. g. by replaying orders or by establishing a two-way audio link. They can be controlled fully through remote-control over a long distance—or they automate their patrol by following a preconfigured route. The law does currently not suitably address and contain these risks associated with potentially armed canine police robots.

As a starting point, we analyze the use of canine robots by the police for surveillance, with special regard to existing data protection regulation for law enforcement in the European Union (EU). Additionally, we identify overarching regulatory challenges posed by their deployment. In what we call “citizen-robot-state interaction,” we combine the findings of human-robot interaction with the legal and ethical requirements for a legitimate use of robots by state authorities, especially the police. We argue that the requirements of legitimate exercise of state authority hinge on how police use robots to mediate their interaction with citizens. Law enforcement agencies should not simply procure existing robot models used as military or industrial equipment. Before canine police robots rightfully roam our public and private spaces, police departments and lawmakers should carefully and comprehensively assess their purpose, which citizens’ rights they impinge on, and whether full accountability and liability is guaranteed. In our analysis, we use existing canine robot models “Spot” and “Vision 60” to as a starting point to identify potential deployment scenarios and analyze those as “citizen-robot-state interactions.” Our paper ultimately aims to lay a normative groundwork for future debates on the legitimate use of robots as a tool of modern policing. We conclude that, currently, canine robots are only suitable for particularly dangerous missions to keep police officers out of harm’s way.

Ronald J. Coleman (Georgetown U Law Center) has posted “Human Confrontation” (Wake Forest Law Review, Vol. 61, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

The U.S. Constitution’s Confrontation Clause ensures the criminally accused a right “to be confronted with the witnesses against” them. Justice Sotomayor recently referred to this clause as “[o]ne of the bedrock constitutional protections afforded to criminal defendants[.]” However, this right faces a new and existential threat. Rapid developments in law enforcement technology are reshaping the evidence available for use against criminal defendants. When an AI or algorithmic system places an alleged perpetrator at the scene of the crime or an automated forensic process produces a DNA report used to convict an alleged perpetrator, should this type of automated evidence invoke a right to confront? If so, how should confrontation be operationalized and on what theoretical basis?

Determining the Confrontation Clause’s application to automated statements is both critically important and highly under-theorized. Existing work treating this issue has largely discussed the scope of the threat to confrontation, called for more scholarship in this area, suggested that technology might not make the types of statements that would implicate a confrontation right, or found that direct confrontation of the technology itself could be sufficient.

This Article takes a different approach and posits that human confrontation is required. The prosecution must produce a human on behalf of relevant machine statements or such statements are inadmissible. Drawing upon the dignity, technology, policing, and confrontation literatures, it offers several contributions. First, it uses automated forensics to show that certain technology-generated statements should implicate confrontation. Second, it claims that for dignitary reasons only cross-examination of live human witnesses can meet the Confrontation Clause. Third, it reframes automation’s challenge to confrontation as a “humans in the loop” problem. Finally, it proposes a “proximate witness approach” that permits a human to testify on behalf of a machine, identifies an open set of principles to guide courts as to who can be a sufficient proximate witness, notes possible supplemental approaches, and discusses certain broader implications of requiring human confrontation. Human confrontation could check the power of the prosecution, aid system legitimacy, and ultimately act as a form of technology regulation.