Algorithmic Regulation and Personalized Law

Christoph Busch is Professor of European Private and Business Law at the University of Osnabrück and Co-Chair of the European Law Institute's Digital Law Group.Alberto De Franceschi is Professor of Private Law at the University of Ferrara and Co-Chair of the European Law Institute's Digital Law Group.

This new handbook takes an innovative look at the current and potential effects of big data and artificial intelligence on the legal system. It explains how technological advances in data collection and information processing will make it possible to change the design of legal rules and tailor them to specific individuals. This new type of "granular legal norms" is part of a broader trend towards algorithmic regulation in the emerging data economy. With practical examples from contract, consumer and tort law, leading experts from Canada, Europe, Israel, and the United States explain how and to what extent legal norms could be personalised. They explore the advantages, limitations and potential dangers of legal micro-targeting and explain how the personalisation of legal norms could change the relationship between individuality, privacy and the protection of general interests. This handbook offers a multi-faceted overview of the emerging field of "personalised law" and provides a unique source of inspiration for scholars, lawyers, judges and lawmakers.

Looks at the effects of big data and artificial intelligence on legal systems

Summary of ContentsPart 1The Concept of Personalized LawA. Personalizing Default Rules and Disclosure with Big Data (Porat/Strahilevitz)I. IntroductionII. Theories of personalized default rulesIII. The feasibility of personalized default rulesIV. Possible Objections and LimitationsV. Personalized disclosureVI. ConclusionB. Personalizing Negligence Law (Ben-Shahar/Porat)I. IntroductionII. Personalized negligence under existing lawIII. The efficiency of personalized standardsIV. Justice considerationsV. Broadening personalizationVI. ConclusionC. The Death of Rules and Standards (Casey/Niblett)I. IntroductionII. The emergence of microdirectives and the decline of rules and standardsIII. ConclusionPart 2Critique and Theoretical PerspectivesD. The Law between Generality and Particularity. Chances and Limits of Personalized Law (Grigoleit/Bender)I. IntroductionII. Distinctions and notional specificationsIII. Evolutionary perspectivesIV. Revolutionary perspectivesV. ConclusionsE. Granular Norms and the Concept of Law: A Critique (Auer)I. The Inevitability of Legal TypificationII. The Problem of Algorithmic DiscriminationIII. The Scope of Granular Law and the Rise of ConsumerismIV. Regulation and the Rule of LawV. Granularization and the Problem of Rule-FollowingF. Logopoeia: Normative Typification and Granular Norm's Informational Differentiation (Femia)I. More acts or more words: negotia, pragmata, activitiesII. Two ways of grasping reality: taming the chaos with Emilio Betti and Tullio AscarelliIII. End of the journey among the concepts' penumbra. From type to typification, and from typification to disseminationIV. Big data: quantities make a qualitative shift in nomogenesisV. Nomogenesis at the intersection point between normative technique and informational limitVI. The loss of informational innocenceVII. Norms on the moveVIII. Les communications & les commercesIX. Politics or AlgorithmicsG. "Granularization" and Cross-Subsidies: Liberal, Neoliberal and Socialist Perspectives (Denozza/Maugeri)I. Granularization: a consistent outcome of a neoliberal trendII. The costs of granularization: the many shortcomings of algorithmic governmentalityIII. Liberal general principles v. neoliberal "granularized" rulesIV. Is granularization efficient? Abstraction and totality in neoliberal thoughtV. Granularization and cross subsidyVI. What's wrong, if anything, with cross-subsidyPart 3Personalization in Contract, Consumer and Tort LawH. 'Granular Legal Norms' in the Financial Services Trade (Sirena)I. The advent of a digital lawII. The trend towards the personalization of private law: from the 'average consumer' to the 'images of the consumer'III. The discourse on granular legal norms (particularly with regard to the duties of disclosure provided by European contract lawIV. The personalization of financial servicesV. Some final remarksI. De- or Re-typification through Big Data Analytics? The Case of Consumer Law (Micklitz)I. Clarification and ArgumentII. From Typification to Granularization prior to Big Data AnalyticsIII. From Granularization to Personalization through Big Data AnalyticsIV. Big Data Analytics in Law Making and Law EnforcementV. Prospects for big data analytics in consumer lawVI. Big Data Analytics and Re-typificationJ. Personalization of the Law and Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts (Patti)I. IntroductionII. The setting within the European contextIII. The role of personalized lawIV. The enforcementV. ConclusionK. Personalization of Tort Law? (von Bar)Part 4Technological and Behavioral PerspectivesL. Personalized Law and the Behavioral Sciences (Hacker)I. A very short introduction to behavioral law and economicsII. The knowledge problem in behavioral law and economicsIII. Examples of personalized behavioral lawIV. The limits of personalized behavioral law1. The strength of empirical correlations2. Algorithmic bias and discriminationV. Good governance of personalized behavioral law1. Privacy respecting metrics2. Oversight and algorithmic auditingVI. ConclusionM. "Smart Contract", "Granular Norms" and Non-Discrimination(Zeno-Zencovich)I. Only wordsII. How "smart" can contracts beIII. CreditworthinessIV. "Granular norms"V. Non-discrimination in the age of big dataN. Algorithmic Regulation and (Im)Perfect Enforcement in the Personalized Economy (Busch)I. IntroductionII. Big Data and the Crisis of GeneralitiesIII. Making Laws for the Personalized EconomyIV. Governance of Algorithms for Personalized LawV. Conclusion