Tech is no different from other complex concerns. It deserves legal treatment that is specific and appropriate to it's nature.
For example, when you ask Uber to quote a price for a trip, and they quote the price, and you click “ok,” that’s pretty similar to a paper contract, but it’s not exactly the same.
Should we make up a new set of laws for contracts that you form over your phone? Or should we do our best to apply the old law to the new situation?
The law takes the latter approach. Benefits include: we already have a ton of experience dealing with the old corner cases. To the extent the new corner cases have some similarity to the old ones, we can use the old precedents to establish a greater degree of certainty about future events and how the law will consider them.
Obviously the law will never be equally applied to everyone, but we would greatly simplify our legal lives if we avoid coming up with a new set of laws for every slightly different new technology.
Crypto and AI are now going the distance with massive lobbying to change the law in their favor.
WarOnPrivacy•6mo ago