2019 Artificial Intelligence And Automated Systems Annual Legal Review

In 2019, companies and regulators faced unprecedented challenges as they navigated a rapidly evolving set of issues and policy proposals on the regulation of Artificial Intelligence and Automated Systems ("AI"). Lawmakers grappled with the difficult questions of how and when to regulate AI and sketched out new legal frameworks, bringing into sharper relief the overarching legal issues that are poised to become the subject of protracted debate over the coming year. The policy debate in 2019 was especially characterized by the gulf between sprawling treatises setting out general ethical principles designed to control and mitigate the risks of AI—including theoretical applications of "general" AI¹—on the one hand, and calls for targeted restrictions on the specific use of certain "narrow" domain-specific AI products and applications on the other.