Runaway Technology

 

Law’s irregular relationship with emerging technologies can produce capricious outcomes; some technologists appear to run rogue, free to do as they please unencumbered by law, while others face legal hurdles that inhibit actual progress. With rapid technological advances, the legal sector requires a better approach.

It’s not just a matter of two separate spheres -- the interaction between technologies and legal frameworks – rather, the path forward must be one of cross-disciplinary collaboration.

Joshua A. T. Fairfield’s “Runaway Technology” argues for such an approach; a new kind of legal framework situated as part of, and embedded within, the science and technology it is trying to address. 

How? Starting with an examination of language and culture, Fairfield establishes that law is language (pg 3). It’s purpose is to “create cooperative fictions like statutes, kingdoms, money, days of the week, contracts, and torts”(pg 8). Properly understood, law is language forged into cooperative tools which ushers us into civil society out of the Hobbesian state of nature. It is designed to enable human cooperation.

As a ‘cooperative fiction’ “law is a series of made-up systems, rules, [and] norms”(pg 8). Fairfield says that the language-as-tool metaphor is appropriate because technology is “the practical implementation of observation-based science” (pg 11), or, as Stanislaw Lem says, “technology is the domain of problems posed and the methods of solving them” (Imaginary Magnitude pg 135). Law is technology – social technology. It is “the practical implementation of rules and norms through human social systems” (pg 13). It consists of symbols in language designed to better society through the implementation of ‘cooperative fictions’ in response to observation-based problems.

Fairfield’s message is hopeful and urgent, but most importantly, it presents a path forward. Law is not in opposition to technology, rather, as a social technology itself, it can advance in parallel to other technologies in anticipation of future developments.

Further, while the digital technologies are rapidly advancing today, in the future digital technologies “may not progress as quickly as we think” because “human expectations continue to outstrip technological performance” (pg 33) (ie perform better, do it faster).

The proliferation of new technologies are challenging established legal frameworks, but law need not take a backseat. The future of law will be as adaptive social technology (pg 47); a tool to outline what our society is, and what we wish it to be. Law will meet the challenges brought about by new technological advancements. The first step will be to adapt the language of law itself. 

Runaway technology : can law keep up? Fairfield, Joshua A. T., Book , 2021. viii, 298 pages : ISBN:108426123, 1108444571, 9781108426121, 9781108444576 Subjects: Science and law. Technology and law.