Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T06:46:51.369Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

7 - Shifting How We Think

from Part II - Running on Words: Law As Cooperative Fiction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Joshua A. T. Fairfield
Affiliation:
Washington and Lee University School of Law
Get access

Summary

Can law keep up with runaway technology? In an era of runaway corporate surveillance, artificial intelligence, deep fakes, election hacking, social media disinformation, do-it-yourself biology, genetic modification, automation, and three-dimensional printed medical implants, law has seemed to take a back seat to rampant technological change. To listen to Silicon Valley barons, there is nothing any of us can do about it.CAN LAW KEEP UP? calls their bluff. The book provides a fresh look at law, at what it actually is, how it works, and how we can create the kind of laws that help humans survive and thrive in the face of technological change. It shows that law can keep up with technology because law is a kind of technology – social technology built by humans out of cooperative fictions like firms, nations, or money. To survive the challenges of the future, we need a new kind of law, and a new way of understanding how humans use language to cooperate, to build an ever-growing and ever-changing system of understandings about how we can secure the benefits of changing technology to all.

Type
Chapter
Information
Runaway Technology
Can Law Keep Up?
, pp. 172 - 212
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×