Artificial intelligence has many potential benefits but also presents many risks.  These risks include threats to safety, security, privacy, fairness, inclusiveness, autonomy and democracy.  Traditional legal tools for controlling such risks such as government regulation and liability will be largely ineffective in managing AI risks due to problems such as the “pacing problem” and the difficulty in assigning responsibility for computer-based decisions.  One possible solution may be to use private standards to make regulation and liability more effective for AI risk management.  In particular, private standards such as ISO 42001 and the NIST AI Risk Management Framework (RMF) seek to provide a comprehensive risk management system to a company’s AI activities. 

This “all of enterprise” approach recognizes that the various AI risks cannot be effectively managed piecemeal but rather require an organization-wide risk management system.  These same standards could rejuvenate both AI regulation and liability.  Several US states (e.g,, Montana, Texas and Colorado)  are already providing regulatory “safe harbors” for companies that demonstrate conformance with the ISO 42011 or NIST RMF standards.  And a growing body of court precedent in the U.S. provides at least a partial liability shield for entities that conform with applicable private standards, whereas non-conformance with such standards can be used as a liability sword by plaintiffs.  These trends demonstrate an interesting model for bringing together government regulation, legal liability, and private standards into a unified governance approach.

About the speaker

Gary Marchant, Ph.D., J.D., M.P.P., is Regents’ Professor, the Clarissa Cerda Professor of Law and Technology, and Faculty Director of the Center for Law, Science & Innovation at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, Arizona State University (ASU).  He teaches and researches on the governance of emerging technologies such as genomics, biotechnology, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, quantum technology, and blockchain.  He has authored more than 200 articles, books and book chapters on various issues relating to emerging technologies. He has served on seven National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) consensus committees (chairing two), and has been elected as a lifetime member of the American Law Institute and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He also chairs the IEEE Working Group (P2863) to create a governance standard for entities that develop or use artificial intelligence.

This seminar presentation is a dual-delivery event. 

Light lunch will be provided. 

If you require accessibility accommodations or a visitor Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan please email regnet.communications@anu.edu.au.