Empirical evidence is mounting that artificial intelligence applications threaten to discriminate against legally protected groups. This raises intricate questions for EU law. The existing categories ...of EU anti-discrimination law do not provide an easy fit for algorithmic decision making. Furthermore, victims won't be able to prove their case without access to the data and the algorithmic models. Drawing on a growing computer science literature on algorithmic fairness, this article suggests an integrated vision of anti-discrimination and data protection law to enforce fairness in the digital age. It shows how the concepts of anti-discrimination law may be combined with algorithmic audits and data protection impact assessments in an effort to unlock the algorithmic black box.
The optimisation of sales practices in consumer markets through machine learning not only harbours the potential to better match consumer preferences with products, but also risks to facilitate the ...exploitation of consumer weaknesses discovered via data analysis. More specifically, recent technological advances have brought us to the edge of mind-reading technologies, which automatically analyse mental states and adapt offers accordingly, in potentially manipulative ways. This article shows that, in market contexts, the challenges of manipulation by algorithm necessitate an integrated understanding of unfair commercial practice, data protection, and privacy law. It maps the interactions between these contiguous yet distinct fields of law, and draws on economics and computer science to develop a novel framework to deal with algorithmic influence. Furthermore, it critically discusses the Commission proposals for the Digital Services Act and the Artificial Intelligence Act, and suggests to complement them with more broadly applicable measures to mitigate algorithmic manipulation.
Das neue unionale Datenschutzrecht ist, entgegen mancher Befürchtung, kein law of everything. Vielmehr müssen unterschiedliche Rechtsmaterien ineinandergreifen, um eine sachgerechte Regelungsstruktur ...im Schnittbereich von Datenschutzrecht und Privatrecht aufzubauen. Philipp Hacker bestimmt das Verhältnis dieser Rechtsmaterien, insbesondere von DS-GVO und BGB. Denn die Verschränkung unterschiedlicher Technologieformen fordert mehr denn je ein rechtsbereichsübergreifendes Verständnis von juristischer Dogmatik und ein interdisziplinär fundiertes Konzept von Regulierung. Auf Basis des geltenden Rechts entwirft er ein integriertes Marktordnungsrecht für digitale Austauschverhältnisse. Die Untersuchung schließt mit Reformperspektiven, die aufzeigen, wie die informierte Einwilligung durch eine technologische ersetzt werden kann, um eine privatautonome Gestaltung von Rechtsverhältnissen unter den Bedingungen der digitalen Wirtschaft zu ermöglichen. Die Arbeit wurde mit dem Wissenschaftspreis der Deutschen Stiftung für Recht und Informatik 2020 ausgezeichnet.
Increasingly, discrimination by algorithms is perceived as a societal and legal problem. As a response, a number of criteria for implementing algorithmic fairness in machine learning have been ...developed in the literature. This paper proposes the continuous fairness algorithm
(
CFA
θ
)
which enables a continuous interpolation between different fairness definitions. More specifically, we make three main contributions to the existing literature. First, our approach allows the decision maker to continuously vary between specific concepts of individual and group fairness. As a consequence, the algorithm enables the decision maker to adopt intermediate “worldviews” on the degree of discrimination encoded in algorithmic processes, adding nuance to the extreme cases of “we’re all equal” and “what you see is what you get” proposed so far in the literature. Second, we use optimal transport theory, and specifically the concept of the barycenter, to maximize decision maker utility under the chosen fairness constraints. Third, the algorithm is able to handle cases of intersectionality, i.e., of multi-dimensional discrimination of certain groups on grounds of several criteria. We discuss three main examples (credit applications; college admissions; insurance contracts) and map out the legal and policy implications of our approach. The explicit formalization of the trade-off between individual and group fairness allows this post-processing approach to be tailored to different situational contexts in which one or the other fairness criterion may take precedence. Finally, we evaluate our model experimentally.
This paper shows that the law, in subtle ways, may set hitherto unrecognized incentives for the adoption of explainable machine learning applications. In doing so, we make two novel contributions. ...First, on the legal side, we show that to avoid liability, professional actors, such as doctors and managers, may soon be legally compelled to use explainable ML models. We argue that the importance of explainability reaches far beyond data protection law, and crucially influences questions of contractual and tort liability for the use of ML models. To this effect, we conduct two legal case studies, in medical and corporate merger applications of ML. As a second contribution, we discuss the (legally required) trade-off between accuracy and explainability and demonstrate the effect in a technical case study in the context of spam classification.
Chronic Lung Allograft Dysfunction (CLAD), manifesting as Bronchiolitis Obliterans Syndrome (BOS) or Restrictive Allograft Syndrome (RAS), is the main reason for adverse long-term outcome after Lung ...Transplantation (LTX). Until now, no specific biomarkers exist to differentiate between CLAD phenotypes. Therefore, we sought to find suitable cytokines to distinguish between BOS, RAS and Azithromycin Responsive Allograft Dysfunction (ARAD); and reveal potential similarities or differences to end-stage fibrotic diseases. We observed significantly increased Lipocalin-2 serum concentrations in RAS compared to BOS patients. In addition, in RAS patients immunohistochemistry revealed Lipocalin-2 expression in bronchial epithelium and alveolar walls. Patients with ARAD showed significantly lower Activin-A serum concentrations compared to Stable-LTX and BOS patients. Further, increased serum concentrations of Lipocalin-2 and Activin-A were predictors of worse freedom-from-CLAD in Stable-LTX patients. These biomarkers serve as promising serum biomarkers for CLAD prediction and seem suitable for implementation in clinical practice.
Smart city applications are increasingly deployed in urban spaces around the world. We contend that they only merit the attribute 'smart' if they embody what we term 'substantial smartness'. To ...develop this concept, we draw on both political and legal theories to show that citizen participation and activation, as well as respect for human and fundamental rights, are two essential dimensions of substantial smartness. Both dimensions, however, need to accommodate temporality, i.e., rapid changes in deployed technologies, their purposes and citizens' use of public infrastructure. By highlighting three examples and discussing smart city challenges to the GDPR, non-discrimination law and the proposed EU AI Act, we demonstrate that politics needs the law - and vice versa - to unlock the potential of substantively smart cities.
Lung transplantation for idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension has the highest reported postoperative mortality of all indications. Reasons lie in the complexity of treatment of these patients ...and the frequent occurrence of postoperative left ventricular failure. Transplantation on intraoperative extracorporeal membrane oxygenation support instead of cardiopulmonary bypass and even more the prolongation of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation into the postoperative period helps to overcome these problems. We reviewed our experience with this concept.
All patients undergoing bilateral lung transplantation for idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension on intraoperative extracorporeal membrane oxygenation with or without prophylactic extracorporeal membrane oxygenation prolongation into the postoperative period between January 2000 and December 2014 were retrospectively analysed.
Forty-one patients entered the study. Venoarterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation support was prolonged into the postoperative period for a median of 2.5 days (range 1-40). Ninety-day, 1-, 3- and 5-year survival rates for the patient collective were 92.7%, 90.2%, 87.4% and 87.4%, respectively. When compared with 31 patients with idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension transplanted in the same period of time without prolongation of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation into the postoperative period, the results compared favourably (83.9%, 77.4%, 77.4%, and 77.4%; P = 0.189). Furthermore, these results are among the best results ever reported for this particularly difficult patient population.
Bilateral lung transplantation for idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension with intraoperative venoarterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation support seems to provide superior outcome compared with the results reported about the use of cardiopulmonary bypass. Prophylactic prolongation of venoarterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation into the early postoperative period provides stable postoperative conditions and seems to further improve the results.
European Union Litigation Esposito, Fabrizio; Hacker, Philipp
European review of contract law : ERCL,
04/2020, Letnik:
16, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This article provides an overview of cases decided by the Court of Justice of the European Union concerning contract law. The present issue covers the period between the beginning of July 2019 and ...the end of December 2019.
This article addresses a critical gap in the current AI regulatory discourse by focusing on the environmental sustainability of AI and technology more broadly, a topic often overlooked both in ...environmental law and in technology regulation, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or the EU AI Act. Recognizing AI’s significant impact on climate change and its substantial water consumption, especially in large generative models like ChatGPT, GPT-4, or Gemini, the article aims to integrate sustainability considerations into technology regulation, in three steps. First, while current EU environmental law does not directly address these issues, there is potential to reinterpret existing legislation, such as the GDPR, to support sustainability goals. Counterintuitively, the article argues that this also implies the need to balance individual rights, such as the right to erasure, with collective environmental interests. Second, based on an analysis of current law, and the proposed EU AI Act, the article suggests a suite of policy measures to align AI and technology regulation with environmental sustainability. They extend beyond mere transparency mechanisms, such as disclosing greenhouse gas footprints, to include a mix of strategies like co-regulation, sustainability by design, restrictions on training data, and consumption caps, potentially integrating AI and technology more broadly into the EU emissions trading regime. Third, this regulatory toolkit could serve as a blueprint for other technologies with high environmental impacts, such as blockchain and metaverse applications. The aim is to establish a comprehensive framework that addresses the dual fundamental societal transformations of digitization and climate change mitigation. AI regulation, environmental sustainability, GDPR, EU AI Act, sustainability goals
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