-
Views
-
Cite
Cite
Beth-Anne Schuelke-Leech, Smart Technologies and the End(s) of Law, Science and Public Policy, Volume 44, Issue 4, August 2017, Pages 579–580, https://doi.org/10.1093/scipol/scx003
- Share Icon Share
Extract
Smart and connected technologies are expected to be one of the transformative technologies of this century. In her new book, Smart Technologies and the End(s) of Law, Mireille Hildebrandt takes a look at these technologies from the perspective of their interaction with, and influence on, law. As a lawyer and the Chair of Smart Environments, Data Protection, and the Rule of Law at the Institute for Computing and Information Sciences at Radboud University Mijmegen, she is uniquely positioned to address the issues covered in the book.
The book opens with a possible scenario of a digital future. Diana is a single parent living in an uber-connected world. Her personal digital assistant (PDA) manages not only her appointments, but also her moods, her health, and her interactions with colleagues, clients, and family members. Hildebrandt uses this scenario to explore questions about agency and responsibility.
One of the main questions that Hildebrandt grapples with is whether the anticipation and solutions that electronic agents enact actually infringe upon individual privacy and identity? Hildebrandt also struggles with the legal effect of decisions and actions by the electronic PDA and where responsibility really resides? That is, who determines what is ‘healthy’, ‘appropriate’, or ‘dangerous’ behavior? Is it the programmer of the algorithm? What if this is determined by the electronic PDA by accessing and comparing a specific individual with millions of other individuals on a Big Data repository?