Hello, dear reader! Today’s AI, Law, and Otter Things is a very short issue. I want to blame this on three factors. First, these days I am feeling a bit bored by anything I write about,1 so I will not impose a half-baked issue on you. Second, because I am currently on the road, attending a very interesting Luxembourg workshop on enforcement in multi-level regulatory systems. Third, and perhaps more importantly to most of you, because I am spending most of my spare time following the soap opera final political negotiations around AI Act: as I write this, there is an agreement on how to regulate “foundation models”,2 but prohibitions and other key topics remain up for grabs. So, today I will just share a few recommendations and opportunities. And the usual otter, of course.
Things to read and watch
Here are some publications that might be of interest to readers of this newsletter:
Stefania Albanesi and others, New Technologies and Jobs in Europe (Working Paper Series 2831, European Central Bank 2023).
Jude Browne, Stephen Cave, Eleanor Drage, and Kerry McInerney (eds), Feminist AI: Critical Perspectives on Algorithms, Data, and Intelligent Machines (Oxford University Press 2023)
Ursula K Le Guin, ‘A Rant about “Techonolgy”’ (2005)
Yafit Lev-Aretz and Katherine J Strandburg, ‘Privacy Regulation and Innovation Policy’ (2020) 22 Yale Journal of Law & Technology 256.
Henrique JB Marcos, ‘Two Kinds of Systemic Consistency in International Law’ [2023] European Journal of Legal Studies 65
Sybe de Vries and others, ‘Internal Market 3.0: The Old “New Approach” for Harmonising AI Regulation’ (2023) 2023 8 European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration 583.
Readers interested in automated decision-making should also take a look at the European Court of Justice’s judgment of the SCHUFA case, which ruled that
the automated establishment, by a credit information agency, of a probability value based on personal data relating to a person and concerning his or her ability to meet payment commitments in the future constitutes ‘automated individual decision-making’ within the meaning of that provision, where a third party, to which that probability value is transmitted, draws strongly on that probability value to establish, implement or terminate a contractual relationship with that person.
In doing so, the settles a few disputes about the scope and requirements for automated decision-making. But, on a first read, it doesn’t seem to provide much novelty regarding the right to an explanation.
Now, let’s move on to non-professional recommendations. If you are interested in the idea of space colonization, either as a fancy sci-fi idea or a real possibility, you should check out Zach and Kelly Weinersmith’s A City on Mars, which provides a nice and somewhat sceptical introduction to the scientific, social, and legal obstacles to that idea.
For more fictional works, Netflix just released for us non-Australians the second season of Fisk, a comedy show centred on a lawyer who leaves a big law firm to join a small firm specialized in wills and probate (hijinks ensue). And, on Apple TV, Monarch is much better than one would expect from an American kaiju TV show; it has interesting human characters, and the presence of Godzilla certainly helps.
Opportunities
The Surveillance Studies Network will host its biennial conference in Ljubljana from 28 to 31 May 2024. The call for papers, panels, and abstracts is open until 31 December 2023.
Applications for the EUI PhD in Law are now open until 31 January 2024. Our department has strong lines of research in European, International, and Comparative Law, covering a variety of public and private law subjects from many methods and theoretical perspectives. All researchers here are fully funded by a grant authority; usually this mean one of the 23 EUI Member States (a subset of the EU countries), but those of us who come from other countries can apply to the Special Doctoral Fellowship or (if you are interested in law, technology, and innovation - broadly construed) an ASPIRE scholarship.
If you already have a PhD (or are finishing one) but still want to come to Florence, the Global Governance Programme at the Robert Schuman Centre is looking for a Research Fellow for a two-year contract starting on 1 March 2024 or thereabouts. They are accepting applications until 7 January 2024.
Maastricht University is hosting a workshop on Narratives, Frontier Technologies & the Law, with a view of preparing a special issue for Law, Technology and Humans. Abstracts are due by 28 February 2024, and a full draft of the accepted papers should be sent by 31 July 2024, with a view of holding an in-person workshop in September or October 2024.
The Europa Institute at the University of Edinburgh is hosting a workshop on Values in EU Law and Policy on 2-3 May 2024. Abstracts of 200 words or less should be submitted to europa@ed.ac.uk along with a short biographical statement (2-3 sentences) by 29 February 2024. Applicants should be either a current PhD student or an ECR within five years of their PhD award at the date of the conference.
Otter warning
See also the otter featured in this tweet by the Council of Europe’s Bern Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats.
Thanks for reading! I hope this issue was of interest to you, and please reach out (by email, on social networks, or in person) in case you would like to point me to opportunities or relevant readings, or just to have a chat about interests.
Please consider subscribing to this newsletter (it is free!) if you haven’t done so, and I hope to “see” you in the next issue.
Except my thesis, in which I overcame a roadblock by splitting a bureaucratic chapter into two chapters I actually want to write. The outcome will demand more work, but I believe it will be more interesting for the potential reader. Stay tuned.
So, it seems I will need to drop the scare quotes around this awful term. This is a pity, for reasons I examined in previous issues.