We're going to otter space
Hello, dear reader, and welcome to another issue of AI, Law, and Otter Things! The first part of the newsletter deals with the relationship between science fiction and tech regulation, a topic that is one of my personal side projects connected with my doctoral research. After that, I speak a bit about otters, before closing with some recommendations that you might find interesting.
Science fiction and regulatory imaginaries
As much as some of them try to deny it, academics are huge nerds. In technology law, a widespread manifestation of this nerdiness is the appeal to arguments and examples drawn from works of science fiction. In my subfield, there are frequent mentions of Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, not just in spaces such as the Gikii conference but also in papers and even in European Parliament reports. From what I have seen, the situation in other patches of technology law is not very different, even if the source materials change slightly. Gattaca substitutes for Terminator as a source in biotechnology law, while it is challenging to read about the space industry without stumbling into references to Star Trek or The Expanse. As a result, I cannot help but wonder how sci-fi shapes our approaches to understanding and regulating technology.
Science fiction enthusiasts often try to ground its value in anticipation. From this perspective, sci-fi works such as those described above are helpful to the extent that their authors manage to identify future trends in technological development. For example, Arthur C. Clarke helped popularise the idea of a geostationary orbit, thus contributing to space-based communications, while Star Trek's shipboard computer is often mentioned as an influence for modern voice assistants. Such a perspective is usually associated with a preference for "hard" science fiction — that is, for works that emphasise their connection with the current state of the art in the natural sciences. If a sci-fi work is grounded on solid science, then drawing from it would provide a reader (e.g. a regulator) with a sneak peek into the future. Or so the argument goes.
A softer version of this thesis claims that science fiction should not anticipate specific technologies but rather map potential consequences of technological change, even if they are produced by different means. As Isaac Asimov put it in "Social Science Fiction", “It is easy to predict an automobile in 1880; it is very hard to predict a traffic problem.” But, just like the stronger anticipatory thesis, this attempt to identify future outcomes of technological change relies on the idea that the authors of a sci-fi work can design a plausible fictional universe that provides us with insights into the real world.
However, this work of universe design is subject, to a lesser or greater extent, to the kind of conceptual design issues we discussed in the previous issue of this newsletter. Predictive power is further constrained by the difficulties in predicting how technologies will be used and prosper or flounder. So, I am quite sceptical that the value of science fiction resides in the prediction of technologies or specific issues. Science fiction does not provide us with guidelines or checklists for the future. Instead, it can assist regulators and legal professionals as a source of models for reminding us that things we take for granted in society are, in fact, contingent on current technological capabilities and social arrangements, as I plan to examine in a future text.
Time for some otters
Otters are not a familiar presence in science fiction. There's a third-person shooter involving them, Kim Stanley Robinson mentioned the extinction of giant otters in The Ministry for the Future, and Stellaris includes a species of lovable mustelids as one of its default civilisations. Since, nevertheless, I could not resist the obvious otters + sci-fi pun in the title, it's time to dump some real-world otter facts.
As a quick look at Wikipedia tells, there are 13 species of otters, all of which are semiaquatic and eat fish or invertebrates. Despite valiant conservation efforts, these species face considerable risk of extinction, but some of them have become significantly popular on the Internet. The sea otter (Enhydra lutris) is known for its familial habits — such as holding hands with one another to avoid getting lost at sea — and its absurd hair density. Families of smooth-coated otters (Lutrogale perspicillata) are regularly photographed amid the Singaporean urban life, while many Instagram profiles in Japan and elsewhere follow the adventures of adorable Asian small-clawed otters (Aonyx cinereus) in domestic environments. Other species, such as my personal favourite (Lontra longicaudis, the Neotropical river otter) or the giant otter (Pteronura brasiliensis), have also gained attention online, even if not as much as their more charismatic cousins.
The sudden online popularity of various otter species has been a mixed blessing to conservation efforts. On the one hand, initiatives such as Projeto Lontra in Brazil and the International Otter Survival Fund in the UK and elsewhere have benefitted from the attention to their cause, as people gain awareness about the risks facing otters and donate money and efforts to their preservation. On the other hand, the illegal otter trade has surged in the last few years, as people seek to acquire the adorable mustelids as pets. This does not mean, of course, that every online otter is the product of animal trafficking. Some of the most active profiles are those of zoos and other legitimate institutions, while some countries might allow individuals to take care of otters that are too old to return safely to nature. But otters are not domestic animals, and they should not be treated as pets.
What can we do about that? As an early-career legal scholar, my mind drifts to regulatory action, both in terms of better international coordination against animal trafficking and positive regulation, as shown by the norms that assisted in the return of the smooth-coated otter to Singapore. But private actors also have meaningful roles to play, such as supporting local conservation actions and avoiding actions that may generate demand for animal trafficking. As painful as it might be, it is better if we try to post more wild otters and fewer domestic (or café) otters.
Recommendations
Laurie Clarke, Oscar Williams and Katharine Swindells, ‘How Google Quietly Funds Europe’s Leading Tech Policy Institutes’ The New Statesman (30 July 2021).
Reports on how various research groups focused on data protection and privacy have been less than forthcoming about their funding sources. While this news item has been celebrated by many people with axes to grind, and the Big Techs are not the only questionable actors when it comes to funding research, this situation indeed raises flags about academic transparency and the instrumentalisation of research by interest groups.
Mar Hicks, ‘The Voices of Women in Tech Are Still Being Erased’ [2021] MIT Technology Review
Important read on the erasure of the important roles women play in the tech industry, drawing from recent examples such as Google firing Timnit Gebru and the NYT's erasure of Rumman Chowdhury when discussing a startup founded on her own work.
Valente MT, Engenharia de Software Moderna: Princípios e Práticas para Desenvolvimento de Software com Produtividade (LeanPub 2020)
This software engineering textbook, currently available only in Portuguese, is the kind of thing I wish I had back when I was taking my undergraduate courses on the subject. It finds a good balance between abstraction and hands-on learning, pending toward the latter.
Well, I think this is it for today! As always, feel free to reply to this newsletter or contact me via social networks in case you want to discuss any of the topics presented here.
After sending this issue, I will be on leave until the last week of August. I plan to maintain the weekly newsletter schedule, but the next two or three issues might end up being shorter than usual. In any case, see you around!