Law and computation I

HUM-487 / 3 credits

Teacher: Tamò-Larrieux Aurelia

Language: English

Remark: Une seule inscription à un cours SHS+MGT autorisée. En cas d'inscriptions multiples elles seront toutes supprimées sans notification.

Summary

This course provides students with insights into how law shapes our increasingly digital and artificially intelligent environments and how the law itself gets shaped within that process and is designed for students who want to critically examine the interplay of law and computation.

Content

Both law and computation have been permeating our private and professional lives: The law has done so for thousands of years already by determining the social and economic structures in which we interact, while in comparison, digitalization only much more recently has been transforming our societal fabric. Understanding how the law can enable or constrain innovation within the broad domain of computation or digitalization is central for developers and engineers to determine how to shape future, responsible computing as well as regulatory environments. Within this course, we will analyze the regulatory toolkit at the disposition of policymakers and map legislations that emerged in Switzerland, Europe, and selected jurisdictions across the globe. We will analyze how the field of digital law has shifted over the years, more recently with a focus on data driven computing and machine learning, and aiming to achieve trustworthy artificial intelligence. We will critically reflect on the shortcomings of current legislation and envisage new approaches to address new risks that an ever-artificially intelligent world entails. This opens up the discussion to newer approaches and domains of law, that are focused on how computation and design can improve legal processes and access to law and justice. These new approaches are situated within the field of regulatory innovation, legal design, and computational law and combine the expertise of computer scientists, human-computer interaction designers, and legal scholars and are often driven by the quest to leverage interdisciplinary know-how to create more accessible legal processes.

 

 

Keywords

Digital law, computational law, artificial intelligence, legal design, regulatory innovation

 

 

 

Learning Prerequisites

Required courses

None

Recommended courses

None

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, the student must be able to:

  • Identify Identify the key rules governing digital services and products, including new governance approaches for data and artificial intelligence
  • Assess / Evaluate Evaluate different regulatory strategies and their impact
  • Assess / Evaluate Assess approaches to automating legal processes
  • Describe Describe practicable, future-facing solutions that enable a symbiotic relationship between automation/AI, law, and society
  • Analyze Analyze complex issues at the intersect of technology and law which necessitates the integration of several viewpoints/methods/fields
  • Assess / Evaluate Assess the state-of-the-art knowhow in the field and, upon this basis, write a project proposal that addresses a specific research gap

Transversal skills

  • Demonstrate a capacity for creativity.
  • Write a scientific or technical report.
  • Set objectives and design an action plan to reach those objectives.
  • Demonstrate the capacity for critical thinking
  • Evaluate one's own performance in the team, receive and respond appropriately to feedback.

Teaching methods

The course will contain different elements such as lectures, practical workshops, student presentations, critical reading groups, and, if the timing permits, for those who are interested participation at a legaltech hackathon.

 

 

 

Expected student activities

Students will work in teams on a capstone project, present their project, integrate peer feedback, and evaluate their projects based on guidelines and regulations discussed in class.

Assessment methods

Fall term:

- Mid-term group presentation of capstone project (pitch)

- End of term individual written assignment

Spring term:

- Mid-term group presentation of capstone project and poster

- End of term written report of capstone project

Supervision

Office hours Yes
Assistants Yes
Forum Yes

Resources

Bibliography

We will read throughout the course the book "Guardrails: Guiding Human Decisions in the Age of AI" written by Prof. Dr. Urs Gasser and Prof. Dr. Viktor Mayer-Schönberger. We will contextualize the themes discussed in the book throughout the lectures and additional reading materials (academic articles mostly) will be provided where further information are needed.

 

 

Ressources en bibliothèque

Moodle Link

In the programs

  • Semester: Fall
  • Number of places: 60
  • Exam form: During the semester (winter session)
  • Subject examined: Law and computation I
  • Courses: 2 Hour(s) per week x 14 weeks
  • Project: 1 Hour(s) per week x 14 weeks
  • Type: mandatory

Reference week

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