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> The aim is not to formalise or put into code all the law, because that would make no sense, but we are interested in the law that is already executed automati

> The aim is not to formalise or put into code all the law, because that would make no sense, but we are interested in the law that is already executed automatically, such as the calculation of social benefits, tax or unemployment. Can anyone explain why it's believed this "would make no sense"?

kelvindegrees 11mo ago
I assume it would fail to compile, or error out, because of myriad conflicts throughout the body of laws.
embedding-shape 11mo ago
Law isn't written to cover 100% of real life scenarios and potential cases, it's written with deliberate parts of ambiguity, that will ultimately be up to courts to set the precedents for, in various situations and context. I think the idea is that you can't really cover 100% of real-life cases in "code", either legal or software, so the areas you'll leave this out of would be those "not-entirely-strict" parts.
- d0mine 11mo ago
  The same can be said about driving but self-driving cars exist.
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 11mo ago
    So is the "bitter lesson" that fuzzy overlords will be practically preferable to hand coded legislation?
nathan_compton 11mo ago
I think the primary reason is that laws are about human convention, not real objects which one can clearly and deliberately define. Like at the most basic level nothing exists at all except for quantum fields or something like that. Everything else we talk about on a regular basis, people, dogs, streets, businesses, etc, is defined by convention to a greater or lesser degree. It is therefore quite hard to create a formal system to refer to objects in the world in a way which induces no contradictions with intuition. This is why we have courts, among other functions of government.
samrus 11mo ago
Basically, all human knowledge is an application of either math or philosophy, and law is philosophy, so cant be modeled by math
- bigbadfeline 11mo ago
  > Basically, all human knowledge is an application of either math or philosophy Philosophy is not knowledge, it's pure speculation. > law is philosophy, so cant be modeled by math Law is not philosophy unless it was written based on sloppy speculations. In other words, what law is, depends on how it was written, it can certainly be modeled by logic and math methods can be developed for it too. It's nothing new, lawyers have to master logic as part of their training.
  - shakna 11mo ago
    Modelling intent, with math, is not going to happy. Law is based around the intent of those taking actions, and understanding intent is absolutely philosophy.
    - bigbadfeline 11mo ago
      Understanding intent is understanding interest and that's not philosophy. If it's not about interest, it's psychiatry - not philosophy either. Besides, only a lesser part of law is about intent, the major part is about punishing and avoiding harm, finding the true facts and applying the written law to them. Down-voting can't change the truth, we've been led by the nose for far too long.
      - shakna 11mo ago
        To avoid harm, you must identify intent. To punish, you must establish intent. Intent has been the core underiding feature of the law since the Magna Carta. To ignore or trivialise it is nothing short of advocating for the return of kings.
        11mo ago
recursivecaveat 11mo ago
A computer program takes digital bytes, runs some discrete logic on them, outputs some more bytes. Laws take messy real world stuff, run some subjective decision tree on them, and output some messy real world actions to take. If you model the former with the latter you end up 'shelling out' to human judgement every 2 words. Suppose you accidentally shoot somebody while duck hunting, the meaning or value of pretty much everything here can't be determined by a computer, so the code-law version of this random snippet of natural-language-law would be pretty useless: > If it is found that the defendant did the killing or wounding, but that it was not intentional or negligent, the court shall dismiss the proceeding. Otherwise, if it is found that the defendant did the killing or wounding intentionally, by an act of gross negligence, or while under the influence of alcohol, the court shall issue an order permanently prohibiting the defendant from taking any bird or mammal.
- ttoinou 11mo ago
  Have you been around on the internet when they discovered AI LLMs ?
dghlsakjg 11mo ago
A lot of law is based around subjective gray lines. “How would a reasonable person behave in this unique situation?” Is at the root of a lot of legal situations. Write a function for that, keeping in mind that “this situation” needs to be modeled with potentially infinite variables. Then try to define a “reasonable person”. Hell, the reason most trials happen is because there is huge grey area, and the written laws are not obvious as to what the outcome should be.
pnathan 11mo ago
Commercial law nuts and bolts is very algorithmic often. Criminal law is often fundamentally subjective, incorporating questions of intent and remorse.
solidsnack9000 11mo ago
It does stand to reason that all law could be formalized. For example, consider the definition of murder in the first degree from 18 USC § 1111: "Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought." You might say, well, "unlawful" and "malice" are fuzzy concepts; but we can take them to be facts that we input into the model. I guess we could write something like this in Catala: scope Murder : definition in_the_1st_degree under condition is_malice_aforethought and is_unlawful consequence equals true In the calculation of social benefits and taxes, the facts input to the model are generally things like prices, depreciations, costs, areas of offices, percentages and so on, input numerically and sworn to be true. These numbers are then used to calculate an amount due (or in arrears). Performing the calculation in a way that is verified to conform to the law is a big part of the work. However, in other areas of law, determining the facts is actually where the real work is -- was there malice aforethought? A formalized legal machine could process these facts but it's not a big help. The models would just be a huge list of assumptions that have to be input and a minimal calculation that produces `true` or one of the alternatives of an enum.

kelvindegrees 11mo ago

I assume it would fail to compile, or error out, because of myriad conflicts throughout the body of laws.

embedding-shape 11mo ago

Law isn't written to cover 100% of real life scenarios and potential cases, it's written with deliberate parts of ambiguity, that will ultimately be up to courts to set the precedents for, in various situations and context. I think the idea is that you can't really cover 100% of real-life cases in "code", either legal or software, so the areas you'll leave this out of would be those "not-entirely-strict" parts.

d0mine 11mo ago
The same can be said about driving but self-driving cars exist.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 11mo ago
  So is the "bitter lesson" that fuzzy overlords will be practically preferable to hand coded legislation?

nathan_compton 11mo ago

I think the primary reason is that laws are about human convention, not real objects which one can clearly and deliberately define. Like at the most basic level nothing exists at all except for quantum fields or something like that. Everything else we talk about on a regular basis, people, dogs, streets, businesses, etc, is defined by convention to a greater or lesser degree. It is therefore quite hard to create a formal system to refer to objects in the world in a way which induces no contradictions with intuition. This is why we have courts, among other functions of government.

samrus 11mo ago

Basically, all human knowledge is an application of either math or philosophy, and law is philosophy, so cant be modeled by math

bigbadfeline 11mo ago
> Basically, all human knowledge is an application of either math or philosophy Philosophy is not knowledge, it's pure speculation. > law is philosophy, so cant be modeled by math Law is not philosophy unless it was written based on sloppy speculations. In other words, what law is, depends on how it was written, it can certainly be modeled by logic and math methods can be developed for it too. It's nothing new, lawyers have to master logic as part of their training.
- shakna 11mo ago
  Modelling intent, with math, is not going to happy. Law is based around the intent of those taking actions, and understanding intent is absolutely philosophy.
  - bigbadfeline 11mo ago
    Understanding intent is understanding interest and that's not philosophy. If it's not about interest, it's psychiatry - not philosophy either. Besides, only a lesser part of law is about intent, the major part is about punishing and avoiding harm, finding the true facts and applying the written law to them. Down-voting can't change the truth, we've been led by the nose for far too long.
    - shakna 11mo ago
      To avoid harm, you must identify intent. To punish, you must establish intent. Intent has been the core underiding feature of the law since the Magna Carta. To ignore or trivialise it is nothing short of advocating for the return of kings.
      - 11mo ago

recursivecaveat 11mo ago

A computer program takes digital bytes, runs some discrete logic on them, outputs some more bytes. Laws take messy real world stuff, run some subjective decision tree on them, and output some messy real world actions to take. If you model the former with the latter you end up 'shelling out' to human judgement every 2 words. Suppose you accidentally shoot somebody while duck hunting, the meaning or value of pretty much everything here can't be determined by a computer, so the code-law version of this random snippet of natural-language-law would be pretty useless: > If it is found that the defendant did the killing or wounding, but that it was not intentional or negligent, the court shall dismiss the proceeding. Otherwise, if it is found that the defendant did the killing or wounding intentionally, by an act of gross negligence, or while under the influence of alcohol, the court shall issue an order permanently prohibiting the defendant from taking any bird or mammal.

ttoinou 11mo ago
Have you been around on the internet when they discovered AI LLMs ?

dghlsakjg 11mo ago

A lot of law is based around subjective gray lines. “How would a reasonable person behave in this unique situation?” Is at the root of a lot of legal situations. Write a function for that, keeping in mind that “this situation” needs to be modeled with potentially infinite variables. Then try to define a “reasonable person”. Hell, the reason most trials happen is because there is huge grey area, and the written laws are not obvious as to what the outcome should be.

pnathan 11mo ago

Commercial law nuts and bolts is very algorithmic often. Criminal law is often fundamentally subjective, incorporating questions of intent and remorse.

solidsnack9000 11mo ago

It does stand to reason that all law could be formalized. For example, consider the definition of murder in the first degree from 18 USC § 1111: "Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought." You might say, well, "unlawful" and "malice" are fuzzy concepts; but we can take them to be facts that we input into the model. I guess we could write something like this in Catala: scope Murder : definition in_the_1st_degree under condition is_malice_aforethought and is_unlawful consequence equals true In the calculation of social benefits and taxes, the facts input to the model are generally things like prices, depreciations, costs, areas of offices, percentages and so on, input numerically and sworn to be true. These numbers are then used to calculate an amount due (or in arrears). Performing the calculation in a way that is verified to conform to the law is a big part of the work. However, in other areas of law, determining the facts is actually where the real work is -- was there malice aforethought? A formalized legal machine could process these facts but it's not a big help. The models would just be a huge list of assumptions that have to be input and a minimal calculation that produces `true` or one of the alternatives of an enum.