5 ms·

The Death of Rules and Standards

22 points by T-A 11y ago

thecosas 11y ago
The abstract alone really scares me. Micro-directives?
- rubyfan 11y ago
  The language in the abstract does seem a little vile. I'm certain I don't want government machine micromanagement directing citizen behavior. Yikes.
civilian 11y ago
The abstract is definitely scary. But this could never get out of development, at least not with our current corpus of laws. The product designers and engineers would quickly realize that there are hundreds of conflicting laws, and beta-testing would show that it would make life nearly unlivable. Maybe it'd be a good thing, ya know? Instead of having selective enforcement of laws, we'll have the oppressive boot coming down on each and everyone's faces. That'll help smash the state.
- crpatino 11y ago
  The really scare thought is that so called "beta testing" may happen in fairly unambiguous contexts, and the real problems will be discovered after wide scale deployment. As painful as it might be, it's straighforward to turn off a malfunctioning system that support a core business need. It is a whole new dimenssion to turn off a gizmo that gives you boneheaded interpretations of the law, but that comes with a preinstalled meta-rule that makes a felony to turn it off or tamper with it in any way. Imagine the amount of red tape required if each bug-fix required an executive order to be deployed!!!
marcus_holmes 11y ago
I for one, welcome our new micro-directive overlords
TeMPOraL 11y ago
I can see some lawyers making pranks by setting up the micro-directives so that when you follow them, you'll end up in a loop... Seriously though, an important thing about the law is the ability to (more-less) reason about it. That I can predict what rules may apply to my future situation and use that to adjust my behavior proactively. With the description from the abstract it'll be impossible by design - micro-directives tailored to specific situations will be too specific and too minutiae-dependent to predict beforehand. --- Skimming the paper, I realize the 'micro-directives' are basically cases of computers making decisions. They are not laws, they're machine outputs that tell humans what to do (operate or don't, drive forward or stop, etc.). So on one hand, it's not as scary as it sounds. On the other, does it make sense to view it from this angle? Why not just talk about what computers are better at deciding than us?
- hosh 11y ago
  In other words, we'd use an always-connected device (like a phone or a watch) to help us comply with micro-directives. I can totally see some folks rebelling against that. There's already fear related to strong AIs. On the other hand, this is _exactly_ the same class of problems Google and other self-driving car makers face when it comes to questions of ethics and morality. There were several recent articles on HN about that. The question posed was: should your self-driving car swerve to avoid those kids who just got off the school bus, sacrificing you and the passengers? That leads to an implicit question: should Google and other engineers be responsible for writing such algorithms? What these two law professors are proposing gives a different option. Change the way policy is made. Such micro-directives (which requires a computing device to execute) would include the behavior of self-driving cars as a general case, rather than a special case. The paper might talk about getting the benefits of rules and standards without the cost, but we're really talking about making our legislation legible for machines to follow. On an even bigger scale: how do micro-directives change how we conceive of and think of a democracy or a republic? Are policy makers sufficiently versed in engineering to reason through the impact of the laws? But then again, the idea was to use Big Data methods to collect that. Does that require specialists to design and deploy that system? Wasn't the original idea behind the American form of democracy, a literate voting public that can reason and discuss the impact of policy and make informed votes for those that represent them? Are Big Data methods more accurate representation of the will of the people? Or less? Now, I've only read the first few pages, but I kinda wonder know if the paper will mention any this (and in particular the self-driving car example). Gonna have something to talk with my law geek buddies for a while.
gojomo 11y ago
A paradise where everything not compulsory is forbidden.
microcolonel 11y ago
This is absolutely insane, but I wouldn't put it past today's society to let it happen. On a positive note, it may become very quickly apparent just how many ridiculous laws there are. Imagine, you're in your lovely Canadian basement, eating doritos. You're engaging in a religious debate on youtube, and suddenly "blasphemous libel" comes out of the spybot's speakers: you said "fuck" in a conversation about scientology.

22 points by T-A 11y ago

thecosas 11y ago

The abstract alone really scares me. Micro-directives?

rubyfan 11y ago
The language in the abstract does seem a little vile. I'm certain I don't want government machine micromanagement directing citizen behavior. Yikes.

civilian 11y ago

The abstract is definitely scary. But this could never get out of development, at least not with our current corpus of laws. The product designers and engineers would quickly realize that there are hundreds of conflicting laws, and beta-testing would show that it would make life nearly unlivable. Maybe it'd be a good thing, ya know? Instead of having selective enforcement of laws, we'll have the oppressive boot coming down on each and everyone's faces. That'll help smash the state.

crpatino 11y ago
The really scare thought is that so called "beta testing" may happen in fairly unambiguous contexts, and the real problems will be discovered after wide scale deployment. As painful as it might be, it's straighforward to turn off a malfunctioning system that support a core business need. It is a whole new dimenssion to turn off a gizmo that gives you boneheaded interpretations of the law, but that comes with a preinstalled meta-rule that makes a felony to turn it off or tamper with it in any way. Imagine the amount of red tape required if each bug-fix required an executive order to be deployed!!!

marcus_holmes 11y ago

I for one, welcome our new micro-directive overlords

TeMPOraL 11y ago

I can see some lawyers making pranks by setting up the micro-directives so that when you follow them, you'll end up in a loop... Seriously though, an important thing about the law is the ability to (more-less) reason about it. That I can predict what rules may apply to my future situation and use that to adjust my behavior proactively. With the description from the abstract it'll be impossible by design - micro-directives tailored to specific situations will be too specific and too minutiae-dependent to predict beforehand. --- Skimming the paper, I realize the 'micro-directives' are basically cases of computers making decisions. They are not laws, they're machine outputs that tell humans what to do (operate or don't, drive forward or stop, etc.). So on one hand, it's not as scary as it sounds. On the other, does it make sense to view it from this angle? Why not just talk about what computers are better at deciding than us?

hosh 11y ago
In other words, we'd use an always-connected device (like a phone or a watch) to help us comply with micro-directives. I can totally see some folks rebelling against that. There's already fear related to strong AIs. On the other hand, this is _exactly_ the same class of problems Google and other self-driving car makers face when it comes to questions of ethics and morality. There were several recent articles on HN about that. The question posed was: should your self-driving car swerve to avoid those kids who just got off the school bus, sacrificing you and the passengers? That leads to an implicit question: should Google and other engineers be responsible for writing such algorithms? What these two law professors are proposing gives a different option. Change the way policy is made. Such micro-directives (which requires a computing device to execute) would include the behavior of self-driving cars as a general case, rather than a special case. The paper might talk about getting the benefits of rules and standards without the cost, but we're really talking about making our legislation legible for machines to follow. On an even bigger scale: how do micro-directives change how we conceive of and think of a democracy or a republic? Are policy makers sufficiently versed in engineering to reason through the impact of the laws? But then again, the idea was to use Big Data methods to collect that. Does that require specialists to design and deploy that system? Wasn't the original idea behind the American form of democracy, a literate voting public that can reason and discuss the impact of policy and make informed votes for those that represent them? Are Big Data methods more accurate representation of the will of the people? Or less? Now, I've only read the first few pages, but I kinda wonder know if the paper will mention any this (and in particular the self-driving car example). Gonna have something to talk with my law geek buddies for a while.

gojomo 11y ago

A paradise where everything not compulsory is forbidden.

microcolonel 11y ago

This is absolutely insane, but I wouldn't put it past today's society to let it happen. On a positive note, it may become very quickly apparent just how many ridiculous laws there are. Imagine, you're in your lovely Canadian basement, eating doritos. You're engaging in a religious debate on youtube, and suddenly "blasphemous libel" comes out of the spybot's speakers: you said "fuck" in a conversation about scientology.