Abstract

The proliferation of algorithms throughout society has resulted in significant challenges to the law in several important areas. For example, for constitutional law the use of algorithms may lead to challenges to free speech rights and to the fundamental rights defendants are afforded in court proceedings. In intellectual property law, the use of algorithms may lead to creative works of authorship or to inventions which may be eligible for protection under copyright or patent law respectively, yet no human author or inventor may have been involved in producing the work. Additionally, governments regularly use algorithms in the process of governing itself, which raises challenging issues within administrative law, contract law, and others. Industry is also using algorithms to interface with customers, supervise business transactions, and to make decisions which impact commercial transactions. And there is interest among legal scholars to discuss the role of algorithms as actors in discriminatory behavior directed against historically protected individuals and groups. This indicates that constitutional rights as well as basic human rights may be involved when algorithms are used in decision making. With these issues in mind, this paper presents a broad overview of the law which is being challenged by the use of algorithms with the goal to generate further discussion on the topic of how the use of algorithms affect people’s basic rights under the law.