AI & The Law: Legal Governance of AI

AI & The Law: A Discussion with Dessislav Dobrev

Session 2 of 2
Session 1:    • AI & The Law: Applications of AI in t...  

AI & The Law: Legal Governance of AI
This session will examine how the law as a governance tool does, can, and should set the parameters around the use of AI in the wider society given AI’s broad ethical, legal, political, and socio-economic implications. In this continuation of the AI & the Law series, we will focus on the law as a regulatory domain in governing AI, building on the earlier discussion of the law as an industry. The presentation will survey the key foundational questions of approach to legal governance of AI and the wide-ranging areas ripe for legal regulation. Some of these foundational questions would be: what should be the function of the law in setting boundaries for AI; does that always mean a new law or can we rely on existing law; in light of the multi-industry breadth of AI’s impact, should the approach to regulation be comprehensive or on an industry-to-industry basis; and which elements of the AI nexus (data, algorithms, output) can be regulated? The session will then review the key areas of AI governance, such as AI in decision-making; AI implications for human autonomy, privacy and surveillance; Legal responsibility and personhood; and AI implications for the political process and socio-economic asymmetries.

Dessislav Dobrev is a leading expert in artificial intelligence and the law and has spearheaded AI matters in both academia and practice. His recent book Artificial Intelligence and the Law: A Comprehensive Guide for the Legal Profession, Academia and Society, published by Thomson Reuters, has been endorsed by high-profile academics, leading law practitioners and global AI leaders. This timely volume is one of the first comprehensive studies of how AI will dramatically affect the law, both as a profession and a regulatory domain, as well as society at large. A practice manual for lawyers, a governance guidebook for policymakers, a risk assessment toolkit for businesses, and a legal discourse that can be easily adapted for academia, this groundbreaking publication discusses the technical capabilities of AI in the practice of law and its ethical, legal, political, and socio-economic implications. As an Adjunct Professor, Dessislav created and taught new law school courses on AI at McGill Law School, has previously taught at Georgetown Law School, and has provided seminars on AI at other leading institutions such as the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology and the NY Bar Association. He is currently practicing international law at the World Bank Group, where he is exposed to AI issues at the global level. Previously, Dessislav practiced law at Davis Polk in New York. He is trained in both civil law and common law, including an LL.M. at the Faculty of Law of the University of Toronto.