As confidence in — and the proliferation of — machine learning technologies, algorithms and AI grows, governments around the world are increasingly relying on them to make decisions. Decisions about how to allocate resources, in the justice system and of course, in surveillance. But there is a long list of examples where this technology has raised serious concerns. So, what is needed before we trust government to use these tools when making decisions that affect us? Lyria Bennett Moses argues that what we need isn’t more ‘ethical AI’ statements or even technological improvements — instead it’s about legal constraints built into legislation, protection for privacy and autonomy, detailed standards that explain ‘how’ to get it right, and engagement with an educated citizenry.

Lyria is Director of the Allens Hub for Technology, Law and Innovation and a Professor and Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Law and Justice at UNSW Sydney. She is also co-lead of the Law and Policy theme in the Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre and Faculty lead in the UNSW Institute for Cyber Security. Lyria's research explores issues around the relationship between technology and law, including the types of legal issues that arise as technology changes, how these issues are addressed in Australia and other jurisdictions, and the problems of treating “technology” as an object of regulation. Recently, she has been working on legal and policy issues associated with the use of artificial intelligence (with a book co-authored with Dr Michael Guihot and published by LexisNexis on Artificial Intelligence, Robots and the Law and ongoing work on standards through Standards Australia and IEEE), the appropriate legal framework for enhancing cyber security (through the Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre), and oversight for law enforcement intelligence. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx