Security News > 2023 > July > AI and Microdirectives

AI is about to make this issue much more complicated, and could drastically expand the types of laws that can be enforced in this manner.

Some legal scholars predict that computationally personalized law and its automated enforcement are the future of law.

It's easy to see how the AI systems being deployed by retailers to identify shoplifters could be redesigned to employ microdirectives.

Legal microdirectives sent en masse for countless scenarios, each representing authoritative legal findings formulated by opaque computational processes, could create an expansive and increasingly complex body of law that would grow ad infinitum.

This brings us to the heart of the issue: If you're accused by a computer, are you entitled to review that computer's inner workings and potentially challenge its accuracy in court? What does cross-examination look like when the prosecutor's witness is a computer? How could you possibly access, analyze, and understand all microdirectives relevant to your case in order to challenge the AI's legal interpretation? How could courts hope to ensure equal application of the law? Like the man from the country in Franz Kafka's parable in The Trial, you'd die waiting for access to the law, because the law is limitless and incomprehensible.

Laws can mandate interpretability and explainability for AI systems to ensure everyone can understand and explain how the systems operate.

News URL

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/07/ai-and-microdirectives.html