CategoryDiscourse

Abstract Just four years after the nation’s summer of 2020 protests—sparked by the murder of George Floyd—culminated in a racial reckoning in which many organizations across the country instituted racial equity measures and policies, legislators across the nation are enacting anti-Critical Race Theory (CRT) bans in a seeming backlash to this advocacy for racial justice. The bans simultaneously...

Abstract Judicial and carceral systems increasingly use criminal risk assessment algorithms to make decisions that affect individual freedoms. While the accuracy, fairness, and legality of these algorithms have come under scrutiny, their tangible impact on the American justice system remains almost completely unexplored. To fill this gap, we investigate the effect of the Correctional Offender...

Abstract How to govern a technology like artificial intelligence (AI)? When it comes to designing and deploying fair, ethical, and safe AI systems, standards are a tempting answer. By establishing the best way of doing something, standards might seem to provide plug-and-play guardrails for AI systems that avoid the costs of formal legal intervention. AI standards are all the more tantalizing...

Abstract This Essay explores the concept of sovereignty in relation to artificial intelligence. Although sovereignty has long been used to describe the status of nation states, the concept of sovereignty is used in multiple ways in the digital context. It is used to articulate state policies in relation to artificial intelligence (AI) and data, an assertion of state sovereignty that often has...

Abstract This essay considers the emerging transnational governance frameworks for AI that are being developed under the auspices of a handful of powerful regulatory blocs, namely the United States, the European Union, and China, which are best positioned to influence emerging global standards.  It argues that these represent a relatively homogenous set of global interests, and that while...

Abstract This Essay addresses reasons for impacted stakeholder involvement in AI governance, ranging from democratic accountability norms to principles of regulatory design. It evaluates several recent examples of both soft and hard law, noting a range of examples of impacted stakeholder participation. It closes with a critique: none of these laws adequately contemplates how to craft transparency...

Abstract The European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act takes a so-called risk-based approach to regulating artificial intelligence. In addition to being celebrated by industry, this risk-based approach is likely to spread due to the ‘Brussels Effect’ whereby EU legislation is taken as a model in other jurisdictions around the world. This article investigates how the AI Act’s risk-based...

Abstract In the face of current technological developments and the uptake in use of opaque algorithmic systems, democracy requires to strengthen the rule of law wherever public or private actors use algorithmic systems. The law must set out the requirements on AI systems’ creation, documentation and use that are necessary in a democratic society and organize appropriate accountability and...

In this essay series, the authors explore different aspects of emerging AI governance regimes.  Though about quite different topics, the essays have many common threads. Several of the essays demonstrate that many of the difficulties with AI governance are less challenges of AI than challenges of governance generally—navigating power struggles and competing interests, getting buy-in, and avoiding...

Abstract Among the world’s largest polluters, state-owned enterprises (SOEs), not privately controlled businesses, are the greatest contributors to global industrial emissions. SOEs are major contributors to fossil-fuel-related carbon emissions, so understanding how to engage SOEs in combating climate change is essential. Because SOEs do not respond to all of the same pressures and incentives as...

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Each year, the UCLA School of Law presents the Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching to an outstanding law professor. On Thursday, April 6, 2023, this honor was given to Professor Eileen A. Scallen. UCLA Law Review Discourse is proud to continue its tradition of publishing a modified version of the ceremony speech delivered by the award recipient.

Abstract This Essay, based on written and oral testimony before the California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans, addresses how best to translate substantive reparations proposals into durable, legible, legitimate, and democratically accessible programs. Specifically, this Essay evaluates institutional design choices, makes recommendations regarding...

Abstract According to the conventional wisdom, money is a scarce private commodity that needs to be rationed. Both households and businesses need enough income to cover their obligations, such as food, rent, payroll, and principal and interest payments on debt. Insufficient income can mean bankruptcy, insolvency, and, for an individual or family, homelessness. Monetary scarcity has pernicious...

Abstract In 2020 and 2022, multiple Republican county canvassers refused to perform their ministerial duty to approve election returns, obstructing the official certification of the results. The canvassers latched onto false claims of fraud and other conspiracies advanced by election deniers. They eventually relented because of court orders and public pressure. The elections produced official...