I see it as a mere swing of the pendulum. I trust it will swing back.

https://re.public.polimi.it/handle/11311/1225493

Is ethics evaporating in the cyber era? Part 2: Feeling Framed

In continuation to the Part 1 published in this volume, this part discusses the oversupply of information and approaches the concerning rights we are alienating to enjoy digital technology. Instead of using the Internet as space for free exchange of ideas, it is being used as a tool for supervision, management, and control. There is an increasing merger of artificial intelligence and machine learning in any sector for analysing, optimizing, and even framing humans. Our digital “buddies” take note of our everyday life, our itinerary, our health parameters, our messages and our content. Big data centres, computer farms are the new “caveau” (Bank Vault) full of “our” data.

Do we ask the AI of it meant to commit a crime? Can we believe its answer?

https://repository.uchastings.edu/hastings_science_technology_law_journal/vol14/iss1/2/

The Artificially Intelligent Trolley Problem: Understanding Our Criminal Law Gaps in a Robot Driven World

Not only is Artificial Intelligence (AI) present everywhere in people’s lives, but the technology is also now capable of making unpredictable decisions in novel situations. AI poses issues for the United States’ traditional criminal law system because this system emphasizes mens rea’s importance in determining criminal liability. When AI makes unpredictable decisions that lead to crimes, it will be impractical to determine what mens rea to ascribe to the human agents associated with the technology, such as AI’s creators, owners, and users. To solve this issue, the United States’ legal system must hold AI’s creators, owners, and users strictly liable for their AI’s actions and also create standards that can provide these agents immunity from strict liability. Although other legal scholars have proposed solutions that fit within the United States’ traditional criminal law system, these proposals fail to strike the right balance between encouraging AI’s development and holding someone criminally liable when AI causes harm.

This Note illuminates this issue by exploring an artificially intelligent trolley problem. In this problem, an AI-powered self-driving car must decide between running over and killing five pedestrians or swerving out of the way and killing its one passenger; ultimately, the AI decides to kill the five pedestrians. This Note explains why the United States’ traditional criminal law system would struggle to hold the self-driving car’s owner, programmers, and creator liable for the AI’s decision, because of the numerous human agents this problem brings into the criminal liability equation, the impracticality of determining these agents’ mens rea, and the difficulty in satisfying the purposes of criminal punishment. Looking past the artificially intelligent trolley problem, these issues can be extended to most criminal laws that require a mens rea element. Criminal law serves as a powerful method of regulating new technologies, and it is essential that the United States’ criminal law system adapts to solve the issues that AI poses.

Good technology used poorly.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d3edx/apple-airtag-stalking-police-family-court

The Legal System Is Completely Unprepared for Apple AirTag Stalking

… Apple has been under fire for stalking capabilities of its AirTag tracking devices for almost the entirety of the lifetime of the device, and this week, two women brought a lawsuit against Apple, claiming that the devices make it easy for stalkers to track victims. One of the women claims that her ex-boyfriend placed an AirTag in the wheel well of her car to track her. The other’s story is similar to Dozier’s: her estranged husband, she claimed, placed an AirTag in their child’s backpack in order to follow her.

Cynthia Godsoe, a professor of law at Brooklyn Law School, told me that the role of technology in family law is becoming more and more prevalent. Where someone used to have to hire a private investigator to follow someone around to build evidence against them in a custody or divorce case, she said, they can now use something like a tracking device—or even just Facebook posts to make a case against their ex.

Will there be liability for failure to speak?

https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr/vol91/iss3/5/

Let's Get Real: Weak Artificial Intelligence Has Free Speech Rights

The right to free speech is a strongly protected constitutional right under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court significantly expanded free speech protections for corporations in Citizens United v. FEC. This case prompted the question: could other nonhuman actors also be eligible for free speech protection under the First Amendment? This inquiry is no longer a mere intellectual exercise: sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) may soon be capable of producing speech. As such, there are novel and complex questions surrounding the application of the First Amendment to AI. Some commentators argue that AI should be granted free speech rights because AI speech may soon be sufficiently comparable to human speech. Others disagree and argue that First Amendment rights should not be extended to AI because there are traits in human speech that AI speech could not replicate.

This Note explores the application of First Amendment jurisprudence to AI. Introducing relevant philosophical literature, this Note examines theories of human intelligence and decision-making in order to better understand the process that humans use to produce speech, and whether AI produces speech in a similar manner. In light of the legal and philosophical literature, as well as the Supreme Court’s current First Amendment jurisprudence, this Note proposes that some types of AI are eligible for free speech protection under the First Amendment.

Not yet ready to replace all those judges…

https://lawresearchmagazine.sbu.ac.ir/article_102915.html?lang=en

The Challenges in Employing of AI Judge in Civil Proceedings

Artificial intelligence (AI), as one of the most important human achievements in the 21st century, is expanding its dominance in science, technology, industry, art, etc. this technology is spreading its shadow over various jobs in these fields. The field of law, and specifically proceedings and courtrooms, are reluctantly being influenced by this technology. This article aims to explain the challenges of employing this modern technology as a substitute for civil court judges. Despite all the AI‘s achievements and the opportunities it can bring to the judiciary, it seems this technology faces severe challenges in matters such as legal reasoning, impartiality, and public acceptance. This research, with a descriptive-analytical method, while explaining the shortcomings of AI in the field of judgment, reveals that AI, with its current capabilities, cannot be considered as a complete substitute for a human judge. This means that it would be more effective to use AI as a tool in the service of judges, helping them in handling and resolving disputes faster and more accurately. These challenges are compounded in Iranian law, which is affected by Feqh regarding judges' conditions and hindrances of the Iranian legal system compared with other legal systems in employing new technologies such as AI.

A sure fire conversation starter?

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13600834.2022.2154050

Artificially intelligent sex bots and female slavery: social science and Jewish legal and ethical perspectives

In this paper, we shed light on the question of whether it is morally permissible to enslave artificially intelligent entities by looking at up to date research from the social sciences – as well as the ancient lessons from Jewish law. The first part of the article looks at general ethical questions surrounding the ethics of AI and slavery by looking at contemporary social science research and the moral status of ‘Sex Bots’ – AI entities that are built for the purpose of satisfying human sexual desires. The second part presents a Jewish perspective on the obligation to protect artificial intelligent entities from abuse and raises the issue of the use of such entities in the context of sex therapy. This is followed by a review of slavery and in particular, female slavery in Jewish law and ethics. In the conclusions, we argue that both perspectives provide justification for the ‘Tragedy of the Master’ – that in enslaving AI we risk doing great harm to ourselves. This has significant and negative consequences for us – as individuals, in our relationships, and as a society that strives to value the dignity, autonomy, and moral worth of all sentient beings.