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Latest news
Hildebrandt takes part in the ‘Meet the Author Series’ with Jaap-Henk Hoepman (30 May 2022)
The Meet the Author debate organised by Brussels Privacy Hub is proud to host Prof. Jaap-Henk Hoepman with his book Privacy is Hard and Seven Other Myths - Achieving Privacy through Careful Design.
... »Hildebrandt to speak on the issue of proxies and choice architectures (2 June 2022)
During the conference ‘Opportunities and Risks of Digital Transformation in Finance and Beyond’ organised by the Centre Responsible Digitality ZEVEDI on 2-3 June 2022, Mireille Hildebrandt will discuss the issue of proxies that is key to any Recommender System but more generally to any AI system. Proxies map what they stand for but they are not the same thing. Proxies are appropriate depending on the specific purpose and may have far reaching negative consequences if recycled for other purposes. Fairness requires a computational proxy to be taken into account by a machine learning system - and even by a multi agent system or a straightforward automated decision system. In her talk Hildebrandt will discuss how recommender systems optimise for two very different types of preferences: those of users and those the providers. In the end this means that proxies will be chosen in a way that rewards preferences that are lucrative from the providers’ point of view. Without a keen eye for the political economy of these kinds of systems it will not be clear that and how the preferences that are inferred are simultaneously nudged. Such nudging is often based on the design of a particular choice architecture that determines what users can and cannot act upon. EU law aims to configure another choice architecture, namely that of the providers of these systems, restricting their choice to provide recommender systems that do not manipulate users into dedicated behaviours but genuinely empower them to follow their own mind. See the underlying paper.
... »Diver and Hildebrandt invited to teach course on computational ‘law’ at Tel Aviv University
Diver and Hildebrandt are currently teaching an intensive course at the Buchmann Faculty of Law at Tel Aviv University. The 12-lecture course is titled ‘Critical Reflections on Computational Law’, and covers a wide range of practical and theoretical aspects of computational ‘law’ and legal tech. It aims to sensitise students to the interactions between legal philosophy and the philosophy of technology, while maintaining a strong connection to real-world legal technologies and positive law (e.g. Article 22 GDPR and the EU’s proposed AI Act). The course mirrors aspects of the COHUBICOL conceptual approach, and builds on various literature from the project, including Hildebrandt’s book Law for Computer Scientists and Other Folk (Oxford, 2020) and Diver’s book Digisprudence: Code as Law Rebooted (Edinburgh, 2022), both open access.
... »Hildebrandt speaks on shock architecture and the optics of choice (9 May 2022)
What is the materiality of the digital? In which ways do digital technologies change the design, production, experience and use of physical environments? Can atoms be translated into bits? Is computation grounded by matter? How does the digital extend or limit material practices? Under which circumstances do digital technologies appear as ambiances, environments or tools? When is friction productive? How does intuition relate to automation? Will the future be detwemined by programmed matter or by decaying data?
... »Diver to deliver talk to Catalan judges on ‘lossless law’
Diver will present at the Artificial Intelligence and Justice Administration Day on 22 April, organised by the Catalan Center for Legal Studies and Specialised Training. He’ll talk about the mediation of law by statistical legal technologies, and how automation bias raises problematic questions around access to law and our collective recognition of fundamental legal concepts and the Rule of Law.
... »Hildebrandt on the disconnect between ‘upstream’ automation and legal protection against automated decision making
In a recent publication in the Journal of Things We Like (Lots) - JOTWELL, Mireille Hildebrandt reviews the article Is That Your Final Decision? Multi-stage Profiling, Selective Effects, and Article 22 of the GDPR by Reuben Binns and Michael Veale, where the authors discuss the arduous issues of the EU GDPR’s prohibition of impactful automated decisions.
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