From the end of lawyers to the end(s) of law - on the cusp of legal theory and computational theory
Project description
This research could inquire into the different schools in artificial intelligence, notably with regard to its application in law. In the 1980s jurimetrics has attempted to translate legal normativity into decision trees, based on the belief that law can be (or should be) reduced to deductive logic in combination with prior legal knowledge. Since the advance of machine learning a new school is emerging, aiming to reinvent legal analysis by way of generative inductive programs, including back propagation and reinforcement learning. It seems time for a foundational analysis of how both methodologies could interact, based on an argumentative understanding of legal practice, assuming that whereas law and human interaction are incomputable, they can indeed both be computed in different ways. The research would investigate the extent to which this plurality could contribute to practical and effective legal protection, making the output of computational law contestable in a court of law. The research would interact with the ERC ADG research team on ‘Counting as a Human Being in the Era of Computational Law’.
About the research Group
Research Group Law, Science, Technology and Society
Since its creation in 2003, the interdisciplinary Research Group on Law, Science, Technology & Society (LSTS) has focused upon the articulations of law, science, technology, ethics and society, taking technological developments and their consequences as a starting point. Although LSTS’s core expertise is legal, it also has a strong track record in legal theory, philosophy (of law, of sciences and of technology) and it notably engages in criminological (surveillance and security), science and society studies (STS). LSTS’s challenges include studying and (re)thinking the constitutive and legal framework of democracies in relation to contemporary scientific and technological developments that seem to confront individuals with irreversible decision-making processes with a major impact on their lives.
LSTS nurtures a bottom-up interdisciplinary approach, whereby disciplinary scientific (legal, criminological, sociological, technological, etc.) practices and research meet, seek mutual interest and understanding, and build up articulations that remain respectful of the different constraints of the disciplines involved, their own way of constructing questions and issues and their mutual impacts.
LSTS, initially led by Serge Gutwirth and Paul De Hert, and currently under the direction of Gloria González Fuster and Mireille Hildebrandt, has grown to become an internationally recognonised centre of excellence on issues such as privacy, data protection law, and well beyond. It brings together an impressive group of reseachers and affiliated researchers, contributes to numerous research projects, and is robustly committed to education. LSTS is also very proud to be the main organiser of the Computers, Privacy and Data Protection (CPDP) International Conference, and supports a variety of internal and external events. LSTS is part of the Brussels Centre for Urban Studies (BCUS).
Over the years, LSTS has witnessed the emergence of the Brussels Privacy Hub (BPH), the Brussels Laboratory for Data Protection & Privacy Impact Assessments (d.pia.lab), the Privacy Salon, the Cyber and Data Security Lab (CDSL) and the Health and Ageing Law Lab (HALL). The ERC project COHUBICOL is also located at LSTS. LSTS further hosts the Chair in Fundamental Rights and the Digital Transformation and the Chair in Surveillance Studies.
More information: https://lsts.research.vub.be/en