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Are you really arguing that the law should be replaced with a precise computer language? Oh my god HN... Laws are typically written with a lot of vague languag

Are you really arguing that the law should be replaced with a precise computer language? Oh my god HN... Laws are typically written with a lot of vague language because humans operate in vague, gray areas. If you write an entirely prescriptive set of laws (Like Hammurabi's Code of Laws) you will forget some things, be too draconian in others, and overall a sense of justice will be lost.

danschumann 8y ago
Not so much that.. but I bet there are logical contradictions in law, and repetition. You know how typescript can check for errors? I bet there are lots of errors in law code. Lets say the same law says something is illegal and not doing something is illegal, because of some convoluted language and whoever passed the law missed it. Maybe not refactor right away, but at least check for errors. Also, if a computer could process law code, lawyers would be obsolete, patent trolls wouldn't have leverage, etc etc.
- vorpalhex 8y ago
  It's interesting because your view of the law is very optimistic, and you assume law is deterministic. The truth is that fundamentally law is not deterministic. You can't deterministically apply the reasonable person standard, or even the layman standard. How do you handle the expanse of human nature, and it's intricacies and vagaries? Law can't be perfectly deterministic because life is not deterministic given the constraint of free will. Trying to make an idealized code without human judgement (and yes, that exposes human bias as well) results in the worst kind of law - an autocracy.
  - danschumann 8y ago
    Law is logic. Logic can be refactored. I'm betting in 5 years we'll see lawyers use AI to help them do their job, specifically to help them create logical arguments for their cases. What I'm suggesting is computers to take the logic of law code to poke around, tracing logic around and finding the obvious logical inconsistencies. A goal would be reducing law code as well as making it more laymen readable. Obviously a huge benefit of being judged by humans and peers is a sense of mercy. I'm not saying we should mess with that. Also, I would say that anything the computer found would be a suggestion to congress as a way to refactor law, not trusting the computer to automatically do it.
    - slededit 8y ago
      Law is not logic in the way a computer scientist understands it. It's intentionally changed with tortured reasoning to get the outcomes the Supreme Court wants and seems fair. This is how the constitution can simultaneously allow segregation and 100 years later prevent it without a word being changed. The only change was the society living under it.
    - vokep 8y ago
      Law is logic but it's soft logic. So yes all we need is to get AI to understand the concept of mercy, basically to capture the spirit, the 'why' of the law instead of the 'what'. A lot of the dumb laws where mercy is frequently allowed are that way because they were designed to be, as catch-alls for harder to define grievances. An AI 'judge' just needs to understand what it means to be a good person. Of course then that could be expanded to an AI which simply tallies moral points and for which a given person committing a given crime gets a punishment designed to best rehabilitate them not to commit the crime again. But that would also be a system which is judge jury and executioner and not even human, and has some self-designed ultimate moral code...thats a lot to get right, and a lot to go wrong.
    - vorpalhex 8y ago
      Law is fuzzy logic that takes in wide band information in a contextual way. AIs are terrible at that, at least as we have them now. > I'm betting in 5 years we'll see lawyers use AI to help them do their job, specifically to help them create logical arguments for their cases. So, actually, Lawyers are using AI right now - but not in that way. Specifically AI is used to analyze and bring up relevant case law, in the same way a law clerk might. It's not perfect, it still requires humans to clean up, but it saves some hours since it can analyze a lot of law quickly and vaguely run a likelihood analysis. Law is also in English. English is not formally logical. Frequently laws have subtle wording problems.

danschumann 8y ago

Not so much that.. but I bet there are logical contradictions in law, and repetition. You know how typescript can check for errors? I bet there are lots of errors in law code. Lets say the same law says something is illegal and not doing something is illegal, because of some convoluted language and whoever passed the law missed it. Maybe not refactor right away, but at least check for errors. Also, if a computer could process law code, lawyers would be obsolete, patent trolls wouldn't have leverage, etc etc.

vorpalhex 8y ago
It's interesting because your view of the law is very optimistic, and you assume law is deterministic. The truth is that fundamentally law is not deterministic. You can't deterministically apply the reasonable person standard, or even the layman standard. How do you handle the expanse of human nature, and it's intricacies and vagaries? Law can't be perfectly deterministic because life is not deterministic given the constraint of free will. Trying to make an idealized code without human judgement (and yes, that exposes human bias as well) results in the worst kind of law - an autocracy.
- danschumann 8y ago
  Law is logic. Logic can be refactored. I'm betting in 5 years we'll see lawyers use AI to help them do their job, specifically to help them create logical arguments for their cases. What I'm suggesting is computers to take the logic of law code to poke around, tracing logic around and finding the obvious logical inconsistencies. A goal would be reducing law code as well as making it more laymen readable. Obviously a huge benefit of being judged by humans and peers is a sense of mercy. I'm not saying we should mess with that. Also, I would say that anything the computer found would be a suggestion to congress as a way to refactor law, not trusting the computer to automatically do it.
  - slededit 8y ago
    Law is not logic in the way a computer scientist understands it. It's intentionally changed with tortured reasoning to get the outcomes the Supreme Court wants and seems fair. This is how the constitution can simultaneously allow segregation and 100 years later prevent it without a word being changed. The only change was the society living under it.
  - vokep 8y ago
    Law is logic but it's soft logic. So yes all we need is to get AI to understand the concept of mercy, basically to capture the spirit, the 'why' of the law instead of the 'what'. A lot of the dumb laws where mercy is frequently allowed are that way because they were designed to be, as catch-alls for harder to define grievances. An AI 'judge' just needs to understand what it means to be a good person. Of course then that could be expanded to an AI which simply tallies moral points and for which a given person committing a given crime gets a punishment designed to best rehabilitate them not to commit the crime again. But that would also be a system which is judge jury and executioner and not even human, and has some self-designed ultimate moral code...thats a lot to get right, and a lot to go wrong.
  - vorpalhex 8y ago
    Law is fuzzy logic that takes in wide band information in a contextual way. AIs are terrible at that, at least as we have them now. > I'm betting in 5 years we'll see lawyers use AI to help them do their job, specifically to help them create logical arguments for their cases. So, actually, Lawyers are using AI right now - but not in that way. Specifically AI is used to analyze and bring up relevant case law, in the same way a law clerk might. It's not perfect, it still requires humans to clean up, but it saves some hours since it can analyze a lot of law quickly and vaguely run a likelihood analysis. Law is also in English. English is not formally logical. Frequently laws have subtle wording problems.