Modern technologies seem to bring almost as many harms as benefits, and
legislators are rolling out myriad new regulations to mitigate such harms.
The EU for instance has recently introduced the Digital Services Act, Digital
Markets Act, AI Act, Data Act and many more. Such technology laws are often
intended to be _technology neutral_ in an attempt to ensure that they have
broad application but also do not quickly go out of date. But if laws are
truly technology neutral, then why do we need so many?
In this talk I will first look at technology neutrality from a legal
perspective. Then, with my computer science hat on, I will look at how
systems designers build long-lived systems, which often have similar design
aims as long-lived laws. I will attempt to show what designers of technology
laws could learn from designers of technology systems, and vice versa. I will
then discuss some ongoing work trying to leverage similarities between the
two disciplines.
Bio: Tristan Henderson is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at the University
of St Andrews, where he is meant to be in charge of Postgraduate Research and
the Responsible Computing Research Group (insomuch as anyone can be in charge
of anything in academia). His current research interests revolve around the
intersection between computer science and law, with a particular focus on
digital rights. Tristan has an MA in Economics, an MSc and PhD in Computer
Science and an LLM in Innovation, Technology and the Law, which perhaps
explains why he is so confused about interdisciplinary work. For more see
https://tnhh.org/
