Algorithms and the Law

• Credit value: 30 credits at Level 7
• Convenor and tutor: Dr Bernard Keenan
• Assessment: a 4000-word summative essay (95%) and online participation in group work and discussion (5%)

What is technology? The question is not as simple as it may appear. Technology is commonly assumed to mean the tools by which humans perform particular ends. It often fades into the background - at least until problems arise. It changes society, yet it is not social. It develops in line with scientific progress, yet it is not merely the domain of scientists and engineers. Philosophers, social scientists and historians have all attempted to answer the question in different ways. Increasingly, lawyers must do so too.

In this module, we critically engage with approaches to thinking about technology. This way, technology and its relationship to law can be understood anew.

Indicative syllabus

• What is algorithmic law? Different concepts and eras of approaches to AI and law
• Law as technology: conceptualising the law as a technology
• Regulating the algorithmic society: the AI Act
• Regulating the algorithmic society: platform power
• Inductive, deductive and abductive reasoning
• Is law computable?
• The authority of technology
• Governmentality and algorithms
• Surveillance powers and the law
• Property in algorithms

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

• understand complex models for conceptualising the relationship between law and technology in systematic and creative ways
• apply theoretical perspectives autonomously to original legal and empirical research on problems generated by new technologies
• evaluate the results of contemporary research into these questions and critically engage with the limitations of each
• critically address a key issue in one of the four areas of the course, or an area that you can persuasively introduce, in the form of an essay.