Professor Elettra Bietti
Khoury College of Computer Sciences
Fall 2023

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Course description and objectives

Technology is as old as civilization. Yet in the last fifty years, the advent of the internet, the digital platform economy, the Internet of Things, and AI, have changed society at increasing speed and reach, raising a plethora of new legal, policy and ethical questions. The way people live their lives, communicate, work, learn, earn an income, travel, and engage in politics is undergoing transformation. This course grapples with this societal transformation looking at the responsibility of engineers and technologists in effecting change. It asks how technology changes society and how the institutions of societies such as the United States must change to respond to new technologies. A core focus of the course will be the regulation of digital platform business models such as those of Meta, Google, Amazon and Microsoft. Through a study of these business models and of technological developments such as generative AI, the course will facilitate an understanding of the role of technology in society.

Themes we will explore as part of this course will include: introduction to law and regulation, introduction to the regulation of digital environments, intellectual property law, privacy and data protection, free speech and content regulation, competition and antitrust, the regulation of AI, Large Language Models and other recent developments.

Objectives

The aim of this course is to better equip students to choose career paths that combine computer science and technical skills with an interest in social justice and regulation, including but not limited to careers in law, policy, advocacy, legal compliance. Students will leave this course having learned how to read complex legal texts, how to think about and write about policy and legal problems and how to devise solutions to current problems at the intersection of law and technology.

Resources

I will, from time-to-time, assign readings from the following textbook: James Grimmelmann, Internet Law: Cases and Problems (13th edition, 2023). I encourage you to download your own copy on this site and offer an amount of money in exchange. The book is very up-to-date and will be a great resource for you if you choose to expand your interest in technology law and policy.

Here are some other resources:

Grimmelmann's list of publicly available legal textbooks and casebooks,

Grimmelmann's list of resources for students,

Resources on generative AI and the law.

Course readings and schedule

The reading assignments for this class will be determined based on the speed in which the material is covered. The assignments will generally break down as follows, subject to change depending on the pace of the course and news developments. Readings are likely to shift as the semester proceeds, as we add or subtract readings and invite guest speakers. If anything changes, I will notify you. Since some lessons will take more than one day or week to cover, I recommend staying a lesson ahead in the reading.