This book introduces law to computer scientists and other folk. Computer scientists develop, protect, and maintain computing systems in the broad sense of that term, whether hardware (a smartphone, a driverless car, a smart energy meter, a laptop, or a server), software (a program, an application programming interface or API, a module, code), or data (captured via cookies, sensors, APIs, or manual input). Computer scientists may be focused on security (e.g. cryptography), or on embedded systems (e.g. the Internet of Things), or on data science (e.g. machine learning). They may be closer to mathematicians or to electrical or electronic engineers, or they may work on the cusp of hardware and software, mathematical proofs and empirical testing. This book conveys the internal logic of legal practice, offering a hands-on introduction to the relevant domains of law, while firmly grounded in legal theory. It bridges the gap between two scientific practices, by presenting a coherent picture of the grammar and vocabulary of law and the rule of law, geared to those with no wish to become lawyers but nevertheless required to consider the salience of legal rights and obligations. Simultaneously, this book will help lawyers to review their own trade. It is a volume on law in an onlife world, presenting a grounded argument of what law does (speech act theory), how it emerged in the context of printed text (philosophy of technology), and how it confronts its new, data-driven environment. Book jacket.

This thorough and incisive Research Handbook reconstructs the scholarly discourses surrounding the field of law and technology, discussing the salient legal, governance and societal problems stemming from the use of different technologies, and how they should be treated under various legal frameworks. This title contains one or more Open Access chapters.

The 18th European Advanced Course on AI (ACAI) took place in Berlin on 11-15 October 2021, organized by the European project Humane-AI Net in collaboration with the European AI Association (EURAI). The school included tutorials on different topics, which were selected through an open call to top European AI researchers. In addition, the school also included 4 invited talks, a student poster presentation, and a mentorship program. This volume contains 21 tutorial chapters organized according to the following themes: human-centered AI; human-centered machine learning; explainable AI; ethics, law, and the societal aspects of AI; argumentation; and social simulation. The contributions include learning objectives, reading lists, and links to further resources.

This is a textbook on law for computer scientists and many others with no wish to become a lawyer, who are nevertheless in need of a proper introduction to how law operates and how it affects individuals, societies, and others. It introduces: privacy and data protection, cybercrime, copyright, private law liability and legal personhood.

This book provides original, diverse, and timely insights into the nature, scope, and implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI), especially machine learning and natural language processing, in relation to contracting practices and contract law. The chapters feature unique, critical, and in-depth analysis of a range of topical issues, including how the use of AI in contracting affects key principles of contract law (from formation to remedies), the implications for autonomy, consent, and information asymmetries in contracting, and how AI is shaping contracting practices and the laws relating to specific types of contracts and sectors. The contributors represent an interdisciplinary team of lawyers, computer scientists, economists, political scientists, and linguists from academia, legal practice, policy, and the technology sector. The chapters not only engage with salient theories from different disciplines, but also examine current and potential real-world applications and implications of AI in contracting and explore feasible legal, policy, and technological responses to address the challenges presented by AI in this field. The book covers major common and civil law jurisdictions, including the EU, Italy, Germany, UK, US, and China. It should be read by anyone interested in the complex and fast-evolving relationship between AI, contract law, and related areas of law such as business, commercial, consumer, competition, and data protection laws.

Smart Legal Contracts: Computable Law in Theory and Practice is a landmark investigation into one of the most important trends at the interface of law and technology: the effort to harness emerging digital technologies to change the way that parties form and perform contracts. While developments in distributed ledger technology have brought the topic of 'smart contracts' into the mainstream of legal attention, this volume takes a broader approach to ask how computers can be used in the contracting process. This book assesses how contractual promises are expressed in software and how code-based artefacts can be incorporated within more conventional legal structures. With incisive contributions from members of the judiciary, legal scholars, practitioners, and computer scientists, this book sets out to frame the borders of an emerging area of law and start a more productive dialogue between the various disciplines involved in the evolution of contracts as software. It provides the first step towards a more disciplined approach to computational contracts that avoids the techno-legal ambiguities of 'smart contracts' and reveals an emerging taxonomy of approaches to encoding contracts in whole or in part. Conceived and written during a time when major legal systems began to engage with the advent of contracts in computable form, and aimed at a fundamental level of enquiry, this collection will provide essential insight into future trends and will provide a point of orientation for future scholarship and innovation.

What does computable law mean for the autonomy, authority, and legitimacy of the legal system? Are we witnessing a shift from Rule of Law to a new Rule of Technology? Should we even build these things in the first place? This unique volume collects original papers by a group of leading international scholars to address some of the fascinating questions raised by the encroachment of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into more aspects of legal process, administration, and culture. Weighing near-term benefits against the longer-term, and potentially path-dependent, implications of replacing human legal authority with computational systems, this volume pushes back against the more uncritical accounts of AI in law and the eagerness of scholars, governments, and LegalTech developers, to overlook the more fundamental - and perhaps 'bigger picture' - ramifications of computable law. With contributions by Simon Deakin, Christopher Markou, Mireille Hildebrandt, Roger Brownsword, Sylvie Delacroix, Lyria Bennet Moses, Ryan Abbott, Jennifer Cobbe, Lily Hands, John Morison, Alex Sarch, and Dilan Thampapillai, as well as a foreword from Frank Pasquale.