Artificial Intelligence: Technology and Law (FS25)

Machines are increasingly capable of performing tasks considered to require “intelligence” if performed by human beings. Recent developments in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) are fueled by novel data processing technologies, ever growing amounts of data, and increased computing power. AI systems come with great promises and opportunities, but they also raise concerns in many respects and they pose significant challenges to the application of today’s legal order. Accordingly, regulators around the globe are currently investigating if and how the law should be adapted to meet these challenges.

This course provides participants with an interdisciplinary view on AI by focusing on the capabilities of AI systems and the regulatory as well as technical responses in Switzerland and Europe. In doing so, it also highlights some of the fundamental differences in preventing undesired outcomes in law and computer science and challenges all participants to reflect on practical solutions for the future.

Important Information: The number of students that can take this class is limited. Registration is handled through the University of Zurich's booking system. The registration period for the course runs from 15 January 2025, 10 am until 28 January 2025, 11.59 pm. Seats will be allocated no later than Saturday, 1 February 2025, 10 pm. There will be a late booking period from 1 February 2025, 10.01 pm to Thursday, 13 February 2025, 11.59 pm (if any seats remain available). If you have any questions regarding booking modules, please contact the Student Center using the contact form.
 

On Tuesday, 18 February 2025 (2.00–3.45 pm,  please visit theUZH course catalogue regarding room information), Prof. Abraham Bernstein, Ph.D., and Prof. Dr. Florent Thouvenin will give an introduction to the objectives of the course and its schedule. They will also highlight the most relevant opportunities and challenges associated with AI from a legal and a technical perspective.

Each student has to provide a summary of his/her personal profile and topics of interest (half page, incl. contact details) by tbc at the latest (on OLAT). The profiles will be made available to all participants in a folder via OLAT. On Tuesday, 11 March 2025 (3.00 - 6.00 pm) each student will very shortly present her/himself (name, fields of study, reason to choose this course, and topics of interest). Each presentation should last no longer than one minute. Following the presentation, all students will be able to discuss and exchange ideas in small groups and to define topics they want to work on in a group consisting of both computer scientists and lawyers. This should allow all students to form or join a group. All groups must be interdisciplinary and should consist of 3-4 students.

On Friday, 4 April 2025 (all day) the groups will present their ideas for a potential paper/artifact during class (max. 5 minutes per group). All groups will get a short feedback on their idea from the professors. Based on these presentations the final assignment of groups/topics will take place in class and/or afterwards. 

Each group will work on a cross-disciplinary AI project and write-up a paper or provide other scientific output (“artifacts”) on a technical and legal AI challenge (e.g., develop a website, wiki, app, interactive analysis, or the like).

Papers must be no longer than 10,000 words. If you provide an artifact, the paper can be much shorter. Please indicate the number of words on the front page of your paper.

The deadline for handing in the papers/artifacts is tbc. The papers must be uploaded on OLAT by tbc at the very latest (please note that lawyers are very serious about deadlines). Groups that build an artifact should provide a short description of the problem they wanted to solve, describe the solution they provided including, if available, a link to the solution, explain the rationale for the specific solution design chosen, and possibly succinctly discuss how they evaluated their solution.

By tbc each group will have to upload a summary of their paper/artifact (one page) on OLAT. The summaries will be made available to all participants on OLAT and all participants are required to read all summaries to be able to participate in the discussion at the workshop. In addition, we will assign one paper/artifact of another group to each group and request them to comment on the other groups work as a discussant peer group at the workshop.

The workshop will take place on Friday, 16 May 2025 (all day). The attendance at the workshop is mandatory.

We will put together a tentative schedule for the workshop (please stay flexible timewise).

Each group will have 20 min to present their paper/artifact. The discussant peer group will then have 10 min to raise their comments and questions. These presentations will be followed by 30 min of discussion. Please keep in mind that you must have read all the summaries to be able to participate in the discussion on an informed basis.

In addition to the paper/artifact, the grading will also be based on the group presentation, the presentation of the comments and questions when discussing the other group’s work, as well as the participation in the discussion. Please note that we will grade the group as a whole; there will be no individual grading.

The slides will be provided on OLAT after the respective lectures.