What AI Practitioners Should Know about the Law - Part One

tion. For the scientist with a valuable new product, the existence of relevant law is frequently of interest only to the extent that it might get in the way. The process of change is viewed as an obstacle rather than an opportunity. Although common, this view is quite ironic. If those responsible for making the rules lack access to needed sources of expertise, those who must live with the rules will face needlessly imperfect handiwork. As technological developments that remove ever-increasing numbers of cognitive tasks from human control alter the assumptions upon which current legal rules are based, the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) systems will pose a significant challenge to the institutions responsible for creating law. It is important for innovators in the AI community to understand both the assumptions and the rules, so that the law can be improved where possible and avoided where necessary. As AI products continue to attain greater commercial prominence and, thereby, touch larger segments of society, AI practitioners will find three substantive legal fields increasingly influential: intellectual property, tort, and evidentiary law. This article is an attempt to introduce a changing legal structure to those who will be most directly affected by its evolution.