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The paper examines the open problems that experts of space law shall increasingly address over the next few years, according to four different sets of legal issues. Such differentiation sheds light on what is old and what is new with today's troubles of space law, e.g., the privatization of space, vis-à-vis the challenges that AI raises in this field. Some AI challenges depend on its unique features, e.g., autonomy and opacity, and how they affect pillars of the law, whether on Earth or in space missions. The paper insists on a further class of legal issues that AI systems raise, however, only in outer space. We shall never overlook the constraints of a hazardous and hostile environment, such as on a mission between Mars and the Moon. The aim of this paper is to illustrate what is still mostly unexplored or in its infancy in this kind of research, namely, the fourfold ways in which the uniqueness of AI and that of outer space impact both ethical and legal standards. Such standards shall provide for thresholds of evaluation according to which courts and legislators evaluate the pros and cons of technology. Our claim is that a new generation of sui generis standards of space law, stricter or more flexible standards for AI systems in outer space, down to the 'principle of equality' between human standards and robotic standards, will follow as a result of this twofold uniqueness of AI and of outer space., Author(s): Ugo Pagallo [sup.1], Eleonora Bassi [sup.2], Massimo Durante [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.7605.4, 0000 0001 2336 6580, Law Department, University of Turin, , Turin, Italy (2) NEXA Center for [...]

The paper focuses on concerns and legal challenges brought on by the use of algorithms. A particular class of algorithms that augment or replace analysis and decision-making by humans, i.e. data analytics and machine learning, is under scrutiny. Taking into account Balkin's work on 'the laws of an algorithmic society', attention is drawn to obligations of transparency, matters of due process, and accountability. This US-centric analysis on drawbacks and loopholes of current legal systems is complemented with the analysis of norms and principles of the EU data protection law, or 'GDPR'. The aim is twofold. On the one hand, the intent is to shed light on some crucial differences between the US and EU law on the regulation of algorithmic operators, both public and private. Whereas, in the USA, scholars debate whether and to what extent new duties and responsibilities of algorithmic operators, e.g. information fiduciaries, have to amend the current framework of self-regulation and light government-as shown by the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy report from November 2016-in EU law much of the new duties and responsibilities of algorithmic operators have been passed upon them as data controllers. Whether such approaches will successfully tackle the normative challenges of the algorithmic society is, on the other hand, an open issue that will likely represent the main topic of debate over the next years. Disagreement may concern: (i) the terms framing the legal question in e.g. statistical purposes of the data processing; (ii) how such terms are related to each other in legal reasoning (e.g. a right to explanation as valid law in the EU); and (iii) legal hard cases that will increasingly have to do with the principles that are at stake also but not only in data protection (e.g. informational self-determination). By entrusting such legal hard cases to algorithms, or some sort of smart artificial agent, humans still bear full responsibility for the judgment of what is socially, ethically, and legally 'plain' and 'hard' in social affairs. The balance between delegation of decisions to algorithms and non-delegation will be the leitmotiv of the algorithmic society. Since the devil is in the detail, the current paper is devoted to some of them., Author(s): Ugo Pagallo [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (Aff1) 0000 0001 2336 6580, grid.7605.4, Law School, University of Torino, , Lungo Dora Siena 100 A, 10153, Torino, Italy Introduction There is a [...]

The use of cyber force can be as severe and disruptive as traditional armed attacks are. Cyber attacks may neither provoke physical injuries nor cause property damages and still, they can affect essential functions of today's societies, such as governmental services, business processes or communication systems that progressively depend on information as a vital resource. Whereas several scholars claim that an international treaty, much as new forms of international cooperation, are necessary, a further challenge should be stressed: authors of cyber attacks can be non-state actors, and identifying the party responsible for such a use of force, whether non-state actors or national sovereign states, is often impossible. Accordingly, several programmes on online security and national defence have been developed by sovereign states to tackle this menace and yet, the endurance of Western democracies and their aim to protect basic rights have already been tested by such programmes over the past years. The new scenarios of cyber force do not only concern the field of international law, since they may represent the main threat in the fields of national and constitutional law as well., Author(s): Ugo Pagallo[sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) Department of Law, University of Turin, Lungo Dora Siena 100, 10153, Torino, Italy Introduction Two thousand years of debate on the characteristics of a [...]

The paper examines the realignment of the legal sources in an information society, by considering first of all the differences with the previous system of sources, dubbed as the 'Westphalian model'. The current system is tripartite, rather than bipartite, for the sources of transnational law should be added to the traditional dichotomy between national and international law. In addition, the system is dualistic, rather than monistic, because the tools of legal constructivism, such as codes or statutes, have to be complemented with the rules of customary law and contracts. In light of the canonical version of the law as a set of commands enforced through the threat of physical sanctions, however, two further novelties must be stressed, namely the soft law-tools of governance as a source of the system and the aim to embed normative constraints into technology, in order to enforce the law through the use of filtering systems, self-enforcing technologies, etc. This latter approach impacts on functions and requirements of the system, by transferring the normative side of the law from the traditional 'ought to' of legal commands to what actually is on the basis of automatic techniques, thus affecting the very notion of source. The overall aim of the paper is to show that rearrangements of the legal sources are intertwined with redistributions of power and hence, a normative standpoint is needed, so as to determine whether scholars can obtain the solution that best justifies the integrity of the law before its hard cases, or the answer is a reasonable compromise between many conflicting interests., Author(s): Ugo Pagallo[sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) Law School, University of Torino, Lungo Dora Siena 100, 10153, Torino, Italy Introduction The analysis of the ways in which the sources of the [...]

The paper examines the connection between online security and the protection of civil rights from a legal viewpoint, that is, considering the different types of rights and interests that are at stake in national and international law and whether, and to what extent, they concern matters of balancing. Over the past years, the purpose of several laws, and legislative drafts such as ACTA, has been to impose 'zero-sum games'. In light of current statutes, such as HADOPI in France, or Digital Economy Act in UK, the paper intends to illustrate how more satisfactory solutions are feasible in the field of online security, such as the new 'Police and Criminal Justice Data Protection Directive' that the European Commission presented in January 2012. At least in Western legal systems, it should be clear that either civil rights prevail over security (no balancing), or such balance has to satisfactorily protect individual rights (proportionality). Keywords Civil rights * Data protection * Filtering systems * Legal balancing * Online security * Privacy by design * Self-enforcing technologies, 1 Introduction This paper dwells on the different ways in which lawyers describe, examine, and argue about the connection between online security and civil rights. The debate includes advocates of [...]

The paper examines today's debate on the new responsibilities of Internet service providers (ISPs) in connection with legal problems concerning jurisdiction, data processing, people's privacy and education. The focus is foremost on the default rules and safe harbour clauses for ISPs liability, set up by the US and European legal systems. This framework is deepened in light of the different functions of the services provided on the Internet so as to highlight multiple levels of control over information and, correspondingly, different types of liability. The new responsibilities of ISPs concern the original 'end-to-end' architecture of the medium and policies on design rather than responsibility for user content and individual messages. Keywords Copyright * Data protection * Internet service providers * Jurisdiction * Privacy by design * Responsibility * Safe harbour clauses * Self-enforcement technologies, 1 Introduction Current provisions on legal responsibility of Internet service providers (ISPs) can be summed up with a default rule and a factual condition. On one hand, the default rule [...]

In order to present a hopefully comprehensive framework of what is the stake of the growing use of robot soldiers, the paper focuses on: (1) the different impact of robots on legal systems, e.g., contractual obligations and tort liability; (2) how robots affect crucial notions as causality, predictability and human culpability in criminal law and, finally, (3) specific hypotheses of robots employed in 'just wars.' By using the traditional distinction between causes that make wars just (i.e., helium iustum) and conduct admissible on the battlefield (i.e., ius belli), the aim is to clarify how advancement of military robotics technology is transforming a 2,000-year-old legal debate on the concept of 'just war.' For the first time, legal systems will hold political authorities and military commissioners responsible for what an artificial soldier autonomously decides to do. The paper examines how the new scenario affects both principles of military conduct and notions of justice in resorting to war. Keywords Autonomous weapons. Just war theory. Laws of war. Liability. Military robotics technology. Responsibility. Rules of engagement, 1 Introduction A number of robots are currently employed in fields as different as national defense and entertainment, economics and education, finance and health care. Such a panoply makes generalizations [...]

Purpose: This contribution explores the underuse of artificial intelligence (AI) in the health sector, what this means for practice, and how much the underuse can cost. Attention is drawn to the relevance of an issue that the European Parliament has outlined as a "major threat" in 2020. At its heart is the risk that research and development on trusted AI systems for medicine and digital health will pile up in lab centers without generating further practical relevance. Our analysis highlights why researchers, practitioners and especially policymakers, should pay attention to this phenomenon., Methods: The paper examines the ways in which governments and public agencies are addressing the underuse of AI. As governments and international organizations often acknowledge the limitations of their own initiatives, the contribution explores the causes of the current issues and suggests ways to improve initiatives for digital health., Results: Recommendations address the development of standards, models of regulatory governance, assessment of the opportunity costs of underuse of technology, and the urgency of the problem., Conclusions: The exponential pace of AI advances and innovations makes the risks of underuse of AI increasingly threatening., Competing Interests: Conflict of interestThe authors declare no conflict of interest., (© The Author(s) 2023.)