Two developments in American law and society warrant sustained and coordinated investigation at the intersection of anti-discrimination law and Big Tech/AI. First, Big Tech/AI have become increasingly influential mediums through which we engage the world around us, with the speed of innovation and adoption increasing exponentially. With an approach that has often been described as “move fast and break things,” these advances have always been criticized for the ways that they (at best) ignore, if not (at worst) intentionally exacerbate, discrimination and bias and reify or create threats to equality, equity, and traditional commitments to anti-discrimination. Second, the modern framework for understanding legal and political equality and core anti-discrimination principles is in flux, with courts and activists increasingly moving away from the original interpretations and applications of civil rights laws that have guided the approaches to discrimination since the 1960s. In light of the rapidly changing technological landscape and an uncertain legal framework, the future of anti-discrimination law/policy and the specific form commitments to anti-discrimination will take going forward is worryingly uncertain.
This Project aims to:
(1) Focus on the social outcomes of technological advances, particularly the consequences and impacts of Big Tech/AI policies and practices on equality, equity, and discrimination.
(2) Sort out the multiple competing and often inconsistent conceptions of fairness, equality, and equity implicated by the contemporary upheaval of civil rights law/policy and fast-moving advancements in the Big Tech/AI space.
(3) Address the interaction between an evolving and uncertain legal landscape and an opaque technology that threatens the conceptual viability and practical utility of the existing constitutional and statutory approaches to anti-discrimination law.
(4) Bring together different knowledge bases, strengthen and foster connections among them, and ensure historically marginalized groups can participate in charting the future direction of Big Tech/AI and anti-discrimination law.
Key Questions to be Addressed:
- What does the future of anti-discrimination law and policy and broader conceptions of equality and equity look like in light of Big Tech/AI advances?
- What are the threats and opportunities Big Tech/AI creates for our society’s conceptions of discrimination and bias in the 21st century?
- Where can/should Big Tech/AI advance equality and equity, given both the potential threats the technology itself creates and the evolution in law/policy approaches to equality, equity, and anti-discrimination principles?