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Tag: AI governance

The Evolution of Legal Ethics with the Advent of Legal Technology: LRD Colloquium Vol. 1 (2020/06)

Reading time: 18 minutes

Written by Jennifer Lim Wei Zhen* and Lee Ji En**

Editor’s note: This article was first published by the Law Society of Singapore as part of its Legal Research and Development Colloquium 2020. It has been re-published with the permission of the Law Society of Singapore and the article’s authors. Slight adaptations and reformatting changes have been made for readability.

ABSTRACT

The advent of new technologies has presented (i) legal technological tools which assist lawyers in dispensing legal services (e.g. Artificial Intelligence (‘AI’)-powered eDiscovery, contract review and legal research tools); and (ii) technologies which shaped the type of legal services lawyers offer or adopt (e.g. smart contracts, online and decentralised dispute resolution).

This paper explores the scope and extent of ethical duties that should be imposed on practitioners in terms of (i) the duty to advise clients on new technologies that would facilitate the best running of their cases; (ii) the duty to advise clients on considering the existence of these new legal services and adopting them in their work products; and (iii) the duty to ensure that the tools used comply with the necessary ethical and professional standards.

TechLaw.Fest 2020 Quick Chats: Dr Ian Walden, Professor of Information and Communications Law at Queen Mary University of London; Director of Centre for Commercial Law Studies

Reading time: 8 minutes

Interview by Josh Lee, Lenon Ong and Elizaveta Shesterneva | Edited by Josh Lee

TechLaw.Fest 2020 (“TLF”) will take place online from 28 September – 2 October 2020, becoming the virtual focal point for leading thinkers, leaders and pioneers in law and technology. In the weeks leading up to TLF, the LawTech.Asia team will be bringing you regular interviews and shout-outs covering some of TLF’s most prominent speakers and the topics they will be speaking about.

This week, LawTech.Asia received the exclusive opportunity to interview Dr Ian Walden, Professor of Information and Communications Law and Queen Mary University of London and the Director of the Centre for Commercial Law Studies. Ian will be speaking at a panel on “Global Perspectives on Tackling AI Governance” on the second day of TLF (29 September 2020).

The Epistemic Challenges Facing the Regulation of AI

Reading time: 8 minutes

Written by Tristan Koh and Josh Lee

The regulation of artificial intelligence (“AI”) has been a hot topic in recent years. This may stem from increased societal awareness of: (a) the possibilities that AI may deliver across various domains; and (b) the risks that the implementation of AI may cause (e.g., the risk of bias, discrimination, and the loss of human autonomy). These risks, in particular, have led renowned thought leaders to claims that AI technologies are “vastly more risky than North Korea” and could be the “worst event in the history of our civilisation”.

A key challenge facing any policymaker creating regulations for AI (or, for that matter, any new technology), however, is the epistemic (i.e., knowledge-based) challenge – policymakers must have domain knowledge in order to be able to sufficiently appreciate the scope, size, degree and impact of any regulation, and be able to propose solutions that are effective and pragmatic.[1]  In fact, it has been recognised in some governments that subject-matter expertise is lacking when policies or regulations are being crafted.[2] To effectively regulate the development and use of AI, it is clear that policymakers and regulators will need to possess a deep understanding of AI technology and its technical underpinnings.

While a full exposition of AI technology in this short article would not be possible, this article sets out some of the key technical features that policymakers and regulators should consider in the regulation of AI. In particular, this piece focuses on neural networks, a key element in modern AI systems. 

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