Recommended Citation
Ryan Calo, Peeping HALs: Making Sense of Artificial Intelligence and Privacy, 2 European J. Leg. Studies 168 (2010), https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/faculty-articles/1148
Publication Title
European Journal of Legal Studies
Document Type
Article
Abstract
The field of artificial intelligence, broadly defined as the study and practice of designing intelligent agents, is at least six decades into its existence as a formal discipline. Sometimes called “computational” or “synthetic” intelligence, AI borrows from and informs a wide variety of subjects, including philosophy, psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, statistics, economics, and law. Techniques of AI underpin all manner of industrial and consumer applications - from the complex neural nets used in data mining, down to the ‘fuzzy logic’ used by commercial washers and driers.
Insofar as “the issues of AI are directly related to [the] self-image of human beings”, and because the central projects and techniques of AI can often be articulated in lay language, few shy away from offering their insights and critiques. This essay explores and updates a particular criticism ⎯ the long-standing claim that certain techniques and applications of AI violate human privacy ⎯ and discusses whether (U.S.) privacy law is adequately positioned to respond.