Dear readers, it’s been a while since the last newsletter. This time, I cannot blame my tardiness on work, as I finally completed many of my side projects. My scapegoat is a bit different this time: some of my laptop’s cooling fans broke down and the replacements only arrived after two weeks. I guess I could’ve written one or two issues from my cellphone or borrowed a computer. But, since my work schedule was a bit more flexible this month, I decided to try something different.
Whenever a writing-intensive task couldn’t wait, I either wrote from my phone or borrowed my wife’s laptop if she wasn’t working. However, I postponed every writing deliverable I could, in an attempt to make the best of the situation and secure some reading time. For that purpose, I printed some papers I intended to read and borrowed some books from the EUI library.
Did it work? Hell no. I can’t say that I was more focused without a computer or that my engagement with the materials I read was any deeper. Maybe I am too used to a screen, or maybe my reading style is too reliant on searching stuff and jumping back and forth between texts in a way that is inconvenient to pursue online. But this brief experience reminded me that I am not a huge fan of hedgehog-style approaches such as deep work. These methods can be useful for many people, but my experiences always feel like a huge waste of time.
Anyway, now I am back to my habitual workflow and making up for the lost time. So, if I owe you a text or an email, now might be a good time to get back to me.
Recent outputs
Given the circumstances described above, I don’t have much news to report. Some of my open projects moved forward but at a glacial pace. The only public output so far is a non-peer-reviewed piece on regulation by design (in the narrow sense of regulation through technical measures) that I wrote for the Competition Policy International’s TechReg Chronicle.1 But later next month, I will present a working paper on the AI Act and its potential Brussels Effect, which I am developing with Anca Radu.
My readings for the thesis advanced, even if at a slower pace than I had hoped for. I have a slight suspicion that I managed to solve a structural issue in my thesis, but I am still discussing that with my supervisor and other interlocutors. Let’s see how that goes. In the meantime, I am mostly focusing on the chapters that connect directly with my open projects, developing them to connect with the thesis’s overarching narrative.
Regarding events and human interaction, I participated in a conference on XAI and Tax Law in Amsterdam, which was a nice opportunity to meet some very nice people and reconnect with old acquaintances.2 I also taught (virtually) a guest lecture for Master’s students at the City University of Hong Kong, in which I provided a brief introduction to the AI Act’s regulatory approach. Last but not least, I had the time to catch up with a few friends and colleagues, which is always cool. So I can’t really complain about my month in professional terms.
Reading recommendations
Chris Reed, ‘Taking Sides on Technology Neutrality’ (2007) 4 SCRIPT-ed 263.
Technology-neutral regulation is a slogan that appears everywhere, with as many interpretations as uses. Still, it is surprisingly undertheorized from a legal perspective, with the most robust attempt being Bert-Jaap Koops’s paper from almost two decades ago. Reed’s article, published not long afterwards, extends Koops’s framework by characterizing three levels of abstraction that can claim neutrality and proposing criteria for the evaluation of technology-neutral approaches. This kind of approach is needed to clear up the conceptual mess that surrounds technology neutrality.
By the way, if you have any reading suggestions on the subject, please reply to this newsletter or contact me elsewhere.
Jenna Burrell, ‘Investigating the Datafied State through Documents’ (Medium, 9 March 2023)
A useful introduction to document analysis in the context of digital societies. It points out that documents can reveal much more than the correlations promised by statistical text analysis, often revealing more through omissions and formal aspects than from the document’s content itself. Despite the US focus of this introduction, the author points out some more general materials and a forthcoming book with global perspectives on document analysis and digitalization.
Friso Selten, Marcel Robeer and Stephan Grimmelikhuijsen, ‘“Just like I Thought”. Street-Level Bureaucrats Trust AI Recommendations If They Confirm Their Professional Judgement’ (2023) Public Administration Review 263.
An interesting empirical analysis of how law enforcement officers in the Netherlands handle inputs received from algorithms. Through a survey of various officers, the authors find that the recipients of recommendations are more likely to trust them if they match the recipient’s own intuitions and experience. This result holds even if officers are provided with explanations of the algorithm’s decision-making, suggesting that explanations do not necessarily increase the trust of users in a system (regardless of their impact on the trust of the general population).
Shirley Kempeneer and Frederik Heylen, ‘Virtual State, Where Are You? A Literature Review, Framework and Agenda for Failed Digital Transformation’ (2023) 10 Big Data & Society 20539517231160530.
An overview of the reasons why digital transformation projects in the public sector can fail. Drawing from English-language scholarship on the topic, it classifies failure factors into three levels. Macro-scale factors can be associated with structural shortcomings in administrative practice, which the authors trace to the New Public Management paradigm. Meso-scale factors refer to organizational shortcomings, such as a lack of capabilities or planning vision. Finally, micro-scale factors relate to cultural factors and leadership practices.
This framework can be useful not just for addressing potential failure modes before they happen (as the authors propose) but also for situating public failures in digital transformation in the broader literature about when and how software projects fail more generally. So, I really hope to see more work along these lines by more empirically-minded scholars than me.
Applications and calls for papers
The Second Max Planck Law Conference for Young European Scholars 2023 will occur in Frankfurt from 12 to 13 October 2023. They welcome 500-word abstracts until 17 April, and accepted authors will need to deliver drafts by 25 September.
The Digital Legal Lab’s Digital Legal Talks 2023 will take place in Utrecht on 15 September. They invite 1500-word extended abstracts until 4 June.
The 7th International Conference on the History and Philosophy of Computing will occur in Warsaw on 18-20 October 2023. They invite submissions of potential contributions until 30 April.
My former colleagues at The Digital Constitutionalism are organizing a summer school on digital sovereignty and extraterritoriality, which will happen in Florence from 26 to 28 June. Applications are open until 16 April.
In addition, DigiCon’s Sci-F(r)iday Book Club will host Anne E Currie for a debate on her book Utopia Five. The event will happen on 7 April and you can register here.
The Asser Institute is seeking a post-doctoral researcher in International Law and AI, accepting applications until 12 May.
Finally, the otters
No pictures of Winnie today, but I assure you she’s doing very well and more sociable by the day. So, I’ll leave you instead with a DALL-E-generated otter (I know I should use MidJourney, but I am really averse to Discord).
See you next time! And please subscribe if you’d like to receive future updates:
Check out this issue on machine learning regulation. In addition to yours truly, it features actually interesting people, such as Cary Coglianese and Gary Marchant.
I even appeared in the conference video, albeit without a speaking role.