Law is a matter of relationships between two or more people. If one lives on a desert island and does not need to communicate anything to other people, one does not need law. Sometimes, you talk to people about yourself or other people and sometimes your discussions involve things such as a nice dish, a home, or a piece of computer code. When you tell a story, you have to decide how to link people and things together so that you story sounds coherent and produces the right effect on people who are listening to you. The link is called an obligation in French law.
A lawyer has to determine the nature of things and the identity of people involved in a relationship. Sometimes, he identifies the nature correctly and mismatches two elements by applying the wrong right.1 Identifying the right relationship between the right people and the right thing requires specific knowledge. If one looks at a hamster spinning in his cage, one may think that the hamster spins the wheel but when one looks at the scene from a wider perspective, one sees that the wheel moves a dynamo that produces electricity that powers a light bulb. One may think that the owner of the cage has put a wheel to make the hamster move.2 A software developer may use an open-software framework for his own project and be a gear in an infrastructure that benefits the major contributor to the open-source framework.3 He may hack someone else's piece of code, but only his knowledge and experience make his work specific. Generative AI can be seen as an effective tool. Nevertheless, it produces only unspecific outputs. You probably have noticed that automatically generated texts lack of a je-ne-sais-quoi and therefore look or sound mechanical. When one makes anything, one relies on one's own knowledge and experience to make anything sensible and relevant. A machine cannot make anything sensible since it has no knowledge nor experience; it can only follow a process to produce data.4 Each time a software developer relies on generative AI, he keeps his savoir faire dark and becomes a hamster spinning a wheel for the benefit of someone else, often a Big Tech. He loses his autonomy.5
Today, efficiency is largely process-oriented. People are happy to follow processes that are designed to minimise risks, not to make anything specific. The difference between efficiency and compliance is blurred. At the end of the process, people might have not done anything effective at all since effectiveness is not an issue. This is not specific to AI. It also happens in the field of trusts and estate, especially when people experience difficulties and cannot maintain their home any more.6 Here again, you can notice the importance of relationships involving people and things.
You may wonder if there is any link between trusts and AI. Thank you very much for asking yourself this smart question! The first Christmas cracker ever published on this blog deals with conflicts of interests.7 My education in trust law allows me to understand that decisions in the field of AI are often taken in a complex environment made of start-ups, small businesses, Big Tech, and public institutions. This environment is a source of political issues that are loosely related to technology and downplay the role of a software developer as a person, not as a hamster spinning a wheel to maintain an infrastructure. It is good practice to look for potential conflicts of interests since it enables the practitioner to identify non technological issues that are otherwise hard to notice.
Instead of focusing on efficient processes, it is interesting to try do something effective, even if it is far from perfect. As energy prices seem unsound despite efficient energy-saving policies, a very old heating method comes to my mind. Entre le bœuf et l'âne gris is a very old French Christmas Carol that is well known in the UK under the title Between the ox and the grey donkey. It reminds us that our ancestors had to find somewhat effective solutions to practical issues and that they found energy-efficient processes while pursuing a spiritual quest.
I wish you a Merry Christmas. May 2024 bring you some serenity!