Week 1 - Introduction & Technology as a regulatory target
● Law and regulation
● Why we choose to regulate
● Technology as a mode of regulation
Disruptive Innovation
❖ Describe the concept of disruptive innovation and how these may affect core legal
concept.
❖ Explain why technology is not a suitable target for regulation and why a socio-technical
perspective is appropriate
● “Deep fakes” = new technology is used to generate synthetic media with the purpose of
appearing realistic and deceiving the real world
○ E.g. Obama and Tom Cruise Video → fake videos
○ Software to produce fictional videos with little cost and expertise
○ Software can be used in elections
○ Targets more women than politicians
○ Can cause social and legal issues
○ Response from society and government: adapt law which can lead to over
regulation
○ Little cost and little expertise
○ Threat to elections → election fraud → threat to democracy →
International crisis
○ Excerpts violence against women
● Deep Fakes Accountability Act - Bill in US Congress
= Risk Regulation Reflex / Knee - Jerk Regulation
○ Moment to acknowledge there is a risk for society
○ Risk Reflex is based on assumption that law is insufficient
○ = Flawed Law Syndrome: ‘ ..the urge to call law or regulation outdated
or flawed (disconnected) and the desire to fix the problems by
addressing the law, rather than using other ways to mend the assumed
gaps’ → Ronald Leenes “Regulating New Technologies in Times of
Change”
● This can lead to Over Regulation
● Effects of Over Regulation:
○ Creates needless direct costs for society
○ Inefficient use of government effort
○ Needless restriction of individual liberties and privacy
○ Constraints on technological innovation
● Alternative to new laws
, ○ Governments can use existing laws if this law is technological neutral to combat
the issue of technology
○ E.g. criminal laws can be used for crimes by “deep fakes”
○ Platforms that host those can ban them
1. What is regulation?
2. What are the social and legal issues caused by this technology? (Deep Fakes) with the
potential risk
3. What exactly should we be regulating?
a. Software?
b. Companies that sell it?
c. Platforms?
d. Malicious use?
Reflect on the technology introduced in Deep Fakes
Deep Fakes = Deepfakes are synthetic media in which a person in an existing image or video is
replaced with someone else's likeness
1. Write down 3-5 legal & social issues resulting from the technology that might require
intervention by regulators/legislators.
- Social issues can result from deep fakes that influence the politics within a country
- Legal issue might be that it is hard to track whether it is an actual deepfake and if so how
and whom to held responsible
- If it concerns e.g. elections it can lead to mistrust and social chaos
- Defamation of Character → liability and tort
- Privacy issues
- Using actors’ faces without permission to include them in the movie → film
industry
- Copyright - is your face copyright ?
- Criminal investigation → honey trapping by police enforcement
- Disinformation regarding elections
1. Write down what should be regulated. I.e. is it a part of the technology or characteristic, or the
use of it.
- Probably not the technology itself, but the fundamental characteristic and one may also
determine in which circumstances it is allowed to use
The LTS Model
,New technology
a socio-technical lens we should determine what the technology of focus actually is, what its relevant
characteristics are and which interests are at stake or are being promoted
● creates new issues
● What is the feature which must be discussed?
● What relevant factors create a new issue?
● What technology
↓
Issues
all sorts of distinctions can be made with respect to the issues;
● New concern e.g. autonomous vehicle
○ Problem
■ such as autonomous vehicles causing accidents on public roads
○ Potential Risk
■ E.g. autonomous vehicles may have to make decisions about whether to
hit the child chasing a ball on our side of the road, or the elderly couple
crossing the street from the other side → who are the stakeholders?
■ E.g. defamation regards public figures
⇒ Existing regulation / regulatory gap
the socio-technical context as well as the various stakeholders came into play
● What problem / risk
● Why
● Which stakeholders
● what does the current law have to say about this problem/technology
↓
Intervention
If there is a regulatory gap, then it calls for intervention → Regulation
Forms of Regulation
1) regulation is the promulgation of rules by government accompanied by mechanisms for monitoring
and enforcement, usually assumed to be performed through a specialist public agency
2) regulation to be any form of direct state intervention in the economy, whatever form that
intervention might take
3) all mechanisms of social control or influence affecting all aspects of behaviour from whatever
source, whether they are intentional or not
, = ‘the sustained and focused attempt to alter the behaviour of others according to standards or goals with
the intention of producing a broadly identified outcome or outcomes, which may involve mechanisms of
standard- setting, information-gathering and behaviour-modification’
- who is to intervene
- who (or what) to address
- through which (combination of) means (e.g. law, norms, architecture, markets)
● Difficult whether to intervene
○ Enforcement (of existing rules if there is noncompliance)
○ Regulation → amending law can bring harmony and align technology and
regulation
● Why regulate?
● Who should regulate?
● What exactly should be regulated?
● Collingridge Dilemma
TOOLS to help this
Ethics: utilitarian, virtue rights, …
Law:
Technology - Regulation - Fundamental values
● Mutual shaping
● Developed in view of existing regulations and fundamental values
● Values may change with the use of technology
● And regulation may change because of technology
● Fundamental values and regulation providing constraints but also facilitate
● E.g. through amendment of the Convention regarding autonomous vehicles, the
harmony between regulation and technology is restored
How to Think about Law, Regulation and Technology: Problems with ‘Technology’ as a
Regulatory Target
- new technologies are frequently the source of legal questions
- Legal scholars are now showing more interest in the relationship between law or
regulation on the one side and technology on the other
- stemmed from cyberlaw scholarship
- Separate terms ‘technology’ and ‘regulation’
- Regulation =
- the promulgation of a binding set of rules
- it can refer to any deliberate state influence
- or it can include all forms of social or economic influence
● Law and regulation
● Why we choose to regulate
● Technology as a mode of regulation
Disruptive Innovation
❖ Describe the concept of disruptive innovation and how these may affect core legal
concept.
❖ Explain why technology is not a suitable target for regulation and why a socio-technical
perspective is appropriate
● “Deep fakes” = new technology is used to generate synthetic media with the purpose of
appearing realistic and deceiving the real world
○ E.g. Obama and Tom Cruise Video → fake videos
○ Software to produce fictional videos with little cost and expertise
○ Software can be used in elections
○ Targets more women than politicians
○ Can cause social and legal issues
○ Response from society and government: adapt law which can lead to over
regulation
○ Little cost and little expertise
○ Threat to elections → election fraud → threat to democracy →
International crisis
○ Excerpts violence against women
● Deep Fakes Accountability Act - Bill in US Congress
= Risk Regulation Reflex / Knee - Jerk Regulation
○ Moment to acknowledge there is a risk for society
○ Risk Reflex is based on assumption that law is insufficient
○ = Flawed Law Syndrome: ‘ ..the urge to call law or regulation outdated
or flawed (disconnected) and the desire to fix the problems by
addressing the law, rather than using other ways to mend the assumed
gaps’ → Ronald Leenes “Regulating New Technologies in Times of
Change”
● This can lead to Over Regulation
● Effects of Over Regulation:
○ Creates needless direct costs for society
○ Inefficient use of government effort
○ Needless restriction of individual liberties and privacy
○ Constraints on technological innovation
● Alternative to new laws
, ○ Governments can use existing laws if this law is technological neutral to combat
the issue of technology
○ E.g. criminal laws can be used for crimes by “deep fakes”
○ Platforms that host those can ban them
1. What is regulation?
2. What are the social and legal issues caused by this technology? (Deep Fakes) with the
potential risk
3. What exactly should we be regulating?
a. Software?
b. Companies that sell it?
c. Platforms?
d. Malicious use?
Reflect on the technology introduced in Deep Fakes
Deep Fakes = Deepfakes are synthetic media in which a person in an existing image or video is
replaced with someone else's likeness
1. Write down 3-5 legal & social issues resulting from the technology that might require
intervention by regulators/legislators.
- Social issues can result from deep fakes that influence the politics within a country
- Legal issue might be that it is hard to track whether it is an actual deepfake and if so how
and whom to held responsible
- If it concerns e.g. elections it can lead to mistrust and social chaos
- Defamation of Character → liability and tort
- Privacy issues
- Using actors’ faces without permission to include them in the movie → film
industry
- Copyright - is your face copyright ?
- Criminal investigation → honey trapping by police enforcement
- Disinformation regarding elections
1. Write down what should be regulated. I.e. is it a part of the technology or characteristic, or the
use of it.
- Probably not the technology itself, but the fundamental characteristic and one may also
determine in which circumstances it is allowed to use
The LTS Model
,New technology
a socio-technical lens we should determine what the technology of focus actually is, what its relevant
characteristics are and which interests are at stake or are being promoted
● creates new issues
● What is the feature which must be discussed?
● What relevant factors create a new issue?
● What technology
↓
Issues
all sorts of distinctions can be made with respect to the issues;
● New concern e.g. autonomous vehicle
○ Problem
■ such as autonomous vehicles causing accidents on public roads
○ Potential Risk
■ E.g. autonomous vehicles may have to make decisions about whether to
hit the child chasing a ball on our side of the road, or the elderly couple
crossing the street from the other side → who are the stakeholders?
■ E.g. defamation regards public figures
⇒ Existing regulation / regulatory gap
the socio-technical context as well as the various stakeholders came into play
● What problem / risk
● Why
● Which stakeholders
● what does the current law have to say about this problem/technology
↓
Intervention
If there is a regulatory gap, then it calls for intervention → Regulation
Forms of Regulation
1) regulation is the promulgation of rules by government accompanied by mechanisms for monitoring
and enforcement, usually assumed to be performed through a specialist public agency
2) regulation to be any form of direct state intervention in the economy, whatever form that
intervention might take
3) all mechanisms of social control or influence affecting all aspects of behaviour from whatever
source, whether they are intentional or not
, = ‘the sustained and focused attempt to alter the behaviour of others according to standards or goals with
the intention of producing a broadly identified outcome or outcomes, which may involve mechanisms of
standard- setting, information-gathering and behaviour-modification’
- who is to intervene
- who (or what) to address
- through which (combination of) means (e.g. law, norms, architecture, markets)
● Difficult whether to intervene
○ Enforcement (of existing rules if there is noncompliance)
○ Regulation → amending law can bring harmony and align technology and
regulation
● Why regulate?
● Who should regulate?
● What exactly should be regulated?
● Collingridge Dilemma
TOOLS to help this
Ethics: utilitarian, virtue rights, …
Law:
Technology - Regulation - Fundamental values
● Mutual shaping
● Developed in view of existing regulations and fundamental values
● Values may change with the use of technology
● And regulation may change because of technology
● Fundamental values and regulation providing constraints but also facilitate
● E.g. through amendment of the Convention regarding autonomous vehicles, the
harmony between regulation and technology is restored
How to Think about Law, Regulation and Technology: Problems with ‘Technology’ as a
Regulatory Target
- new technologies are frequently the source of legal questions
- Legal scholars are now showing more interest in the relationship between law or
regulation on the one side and technology on the other
- stemmed from cyberlaw scholarship
- Separate terms ‘technology’ and ‘regulation’
- Regulation =
- the promulgation of a binding set of rules
- it can refer to any deliberate state influence
- or it can include all forms of social or economic influence
