1,580 research outputs found
Conceptual Modeling in Law: An Interdisciplinary Research Agenda
The article describes how different approaches from the IS field of conceptual modeling should be transferred to the legal domain to enhance comprehensibility of legal regulations and contracts. It is further described how this in turn would benefit the IS discipline. The findings emphasize the importance of further interdisciplinary research on that topic. A research agenda that synthesizes the presented ideas is proposed based on a framework that structures the research field. Researchers from both disciplines, IS and Law, that are interested in this field should use the research agenda to position their research and to derive new and innovative research questions
E-rulemaking: Information Technology and the Regulatory Process: New Directions in Digital Government Research
Electronic rulemaking, or e-rulemaking, offers the potential to overcome some of the informational challenges associated with developing regulations. E-rulemaking refers to the use of digital technologies in the development and implementation of regulations. The use of these technologies may help streamline and improve regulatory management, such as by helping agency staff retrieve and analyze vast quantities of information from diverse sources. By taking better advantage of advances in digital technologies, agencies might also be able to increase the public\u27s access to and involvement in rulemaking. Part I of this article details the rulemaking process, outlining the procedures agencies must currently follow in developing new regulations and highlighting some of the problems generally associated with rulemaking. Part II considers ways that information technology may be able to improve the rulemaking process, as well as discusses some of the chief goals, choices, and challenges associated with e-rulemaking. Part III presents a cross-disciplinary agenda for research intended to contribute to e-rulemaking\u27s long-term potential for improving government regulation and enhancing the management and legitimacy of the rulemaking process
E-Rulemaking: Information Technology and the Regulatory Process
In order to channel interest in e-rulemaking toward effective and meaningful innovations in regulatory practice, the Kennedy School of Government\u27s Regulatory Policy Program convened two major workshops, bringing together academic experts from computer sciences, law, and public management along with key public officials involved in managing federal regulation. This paper summarizes the discussions that took place at these workshops and develops an agenda for future research on information technology and the rulemaking process. It highlights the institutional challenges associated with using information technology in the federal regulatory process and suggests that in some cases existing rulemaking practices may need to be reconfigured in order to take full advantage of technological developments. Ultimately, the effective deployment of information technology to assist with government rulemaking will depend on integrating knowledge from across the social sciences, law, and information sciences
Law Informs Code: A Legal Informatics Approach to Aligning Artificial Intelligence with Humans
We are currently unable to specify human goals and societal values in a way
that reliably directs AI behavior. Law-making and legal interpretation form a
computational engine that converts opaque human values into legible directives.
"Law Informs Code" is the research agenda embedding legal knowledge and
reasoning in AI. Similar to how parties to a legal contract cannot foresee
every potential contingency of their future relationship, and legislators
cannot predict all the circumstances under which their proposed bills will be
applied, we cannot ex ante specify rules that provably direct good AI behavior.
Legal theory and practice have developed arrays of tools to address these
specification problems. For instance, legal standards allow humans to develop
shared understandings and adapt them to novel situations. In contrast to more
prosaic uses of the law (e.g., as a deterrent of bad behavior through the
threat of sanction), leveraged as an expression of how humans communicate their
goals, and what society values, Law Informs Code.
We describe how data generated by legal processes (methods of law-making,
statutory interpretation, contract drafting, applications of legal standards,
legal reasoning, etc.) can facilitate the robust specification of inherently
vague human goals. This increases human-AI alignment and the local usefulness
of AI. Toward society-AI alignment, we present a framework for understanding
law as the applied philosophy of multi-agent alignment. Although law is partly
a reflection of historically contingent political power - and thus not a
perfect aggregation of citizen preferences - if properly parsed, its
distillation offers the most legitimate computational comprehension of societal
values available. If law eventually informs powerful AI, engaging in the
deliberative political process to improve law takes on even more meaning.Comment: Forthcoming in Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual
Property, Volume 2
Incomplete Innovation and the Premature Disruption of Legal Services
Article published in the Michigan State Law Review
Linked democracy : foundations, tools, and applications
Chapter 1Introduction to Linked DataAbstractThis chapter presents Linked Data, a new form of distributed data on theweb which is especially suitable to be manipulated by machines and to shareknowledge. By adopting the linked data publication paradigm, anybody can publishdata on the web, relate it to data resources published by others and run artificialintelligence algorithms in a smooth manner. Open linked data resources maydemocratize the future access to knowledge by the mass of internet users, eitherdirectly or mediated through algorithms. Governments have enthusiasticallyadopted these ideas, which is in harmony with the broader open data movement
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