Artist: Nicolas Berger
Mechanical Cognition, Determinism and Individual Justice: New Challenges for Administrative Law from AI
Lunchtime Webinar, 13 October 2020 12.30 - 1.30pm (AEDT). Presented by Dr Will Bateman. Chaired by Paul Pfitzner.
Existing public law rules and government institutions are built on certain assumptions about the cognitive capacities of public officials and citizens: intuitive abilities to understand complex texts, non-textual human communication, opportunistic behaviour and the need for compassion/empathy. Many public law rules also assume that public officials and citizens have free wills and must be treated as unique individuals.
The rise of AI brings with it the rise of mechanical (or computational) systems of cognition, which differ in important ways from human cognition, being: more precise, more transparent, more consistent, less flexible, less capable of responding to complex texts and environments and less obviously capable of compassion. Machine learning systems challenge ideas around free will and challenge assumptions about the uniqueness of individual behaviour.
This talk will explore the various challenges the widespread adoption of AI by governments poses to traditional public law and proposes a set of legislative and doctrinal solutions.
Dr Will Bateman is Chief Investigator (Law) of the ANU Grand Challenge Project: Humanising Machine Intelligence and leads research projects on the regulation of artificial intelligence. He is currently spearheading a major project on the formulation of model legal frameworks to govern artificial intelligence in the public sector. He also collaborates with computer science experts in designing ethical and lawful algorithmic decision systems.
Paul Pfitzner is the Senior Assistant Ombudsman, Industry and Strategy Branch, in the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman.