[alti-amsterdam] ALTI Newsletter – December ‘22

[Amsterdam Law And Technology Institute]

Dear all,

It’s been an eventful few months for ALTI since our last newsletter.

The news has been dominated by developments in the worlds of AI, blockchains and the metaverse, and the law’s relationship with emerging technologies finds itself under great scrutiny. It has been our pleasure contributing to the critical analysis of these ever-shifting spaces. Yet, there is no rest for wicked cyber-lawyers, and ALTI has been busy preparing for a number events that we are especially excited for.

First up, ALTI will be hosting the 38th Annual Bileta Conference on Friday 14th April 2023, with the theme “Cyberlaw: Finally Getting Its Act(s) Together?”. The theme relates to the avalanche of regulation of cyber-technology that has been drafted in recent years, and the myriad complexities that accompany the enacting of so much cyberlaw legislation in such a short amount of time. The Call For Papers<https://alti.amsterdam/bileta23/> is currently open until 10 January 2023, so we look forward to receiving your abstract!

We are also excited to escape the cold in February for our Antitrust Under the Palms<https://alti.amsterdam/event/antitrust-under-the-palms/> event in Miami, Florida, which we will be co-hosting with the International Center for Law & Economics. Given the profound sea change that has occurred in antitrust enforcement over the past year, cross-border collaboration on antitrust policy is as crucial as ever, and we look forward to investigating the role of competition scholars in today’s rapidly deteriorating policy environment, and to identify possible points of mutual convergence.

Given we are coming to end of the year, we might reflect on the stimulating events that we have organised over these past few months. We had a number of insightful fireside chats relating to the role that metaverses play in our impending futures. We welcomed Chris Berg all the way from Melbourne, Australia’s RMIT University to discuss metaverses built upon blockchain software and their relationship to crypto-anarchic histories. With many believing the only metaverse to be the one run by Meta, we loved Chris’ insightful analysis of alternative blockchain metaverses and the promises and challenges of creating virtual worlds with decentralised power structures.

Chris’ fireside chat served as a perfect one-two punch with our chat with the University of Haifa’s Eldar Haber on the criminal metaverse, who was able to critically convey how criminal behaviour is exhibited in virtual spaces, the role that metaverse infrastructures play in supporting illegal activity and the challenges of the law in regulating unlawful conduct in virtual realities.

We also recorded a number of excellent conversations about contemporary challenges of AI systems. First, we spoke with Dan L. Burk<https://alti.amsterdam/ai-creativity> about AI creativity and IP rights. Here, he was able to speak to many of the challenges he outlined in his insightful Forum contribution<https://alti.amsterdam/burk-creativity/> from earlier in the year. We also spoke with Axel Voss<https://alti.amsterdam/ai-act-voss/>, Member of the European Parliament, about approaches, philosophies , and ambitions of the forthcoming Artificial Intelligence Act.

As ever, the ALTI Forum has been host to a swathe of fascinating analyses of the law’s shifting relationship with technology, such as Silvia de Conca, Ioana Bratu, Mark Leiser & Zachary Cooper’s recent in-depth analysis<https://alti.amsterdam/may-cause-liability-part-1/> of the potential gains and pitfalls of the EU’s new AI Liability Directive. Thibault Schrepel also deepened his vision of computational antitrust solutions by proposing an Antitrust API<https://alti.amsterdam/the-antitrust-api/> which would automate compliance with Article 102 TFEU.

The Forum has also hosted a number of excellent pieces from guest scholars, such as Giancarlo Frosio’s critique<https://alti.amsterdam/frosio-online-creativity/> on how on algorithmic creativity is presided over by the Court of Justice of the European Union, Brian L. Frye’s piece<https://alti.amsterdam/frye-nftmarks/> on lawsuits over NFT’s and how we might ascertain their value, and Anna Schröder’s contribution<https://alti.amsterdam/schroder-biometric/> on how the AI Act interacts with biometric surveillance systems.

Earlier in the year, the Forum published excellent guest contributions on the blockchain from Chris Berg, whose piece<https://alti.amsterdam/berg-blockchain/> recontextualised the origins of blockchain technologies in their mission to to build “reliable systems out of unreliable parts”, and David Rossati, who explored<https://alti.amsterdam/rossati-carbon/> Blockchain prototypes for the new carbon market under the Paris Agreement.

In the short time since we have published these pieces, the relationships between the public and blockchain, AI and other emerging technologies continue to evolve dramatically, and we are extremely excited to continue to contribute our analyses and collaborations with other expert scholars in this challenging and thought-provoking age.

We wish everyone a very happy holiday season and a wonderful new year! See you in 2023!

ALTI Team
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