Research

Privacy and Data Protection

The rights to privacy and data protection are about the flow of personal information. Our approach to privacy research spans commercial, governmental, and organizational surveillance. Beyond research about law and policy, we engage with topics from security and privacy engineering, as well as foundational theory. Our work covers both United States and European legal systems, often drawing comparisons between them and other jurisdictions.

Law and Complexity

At the Information Law Institute, we are pioneering research at the interface of law and complexity. We apply the methods and tools of complexity science, including agent based modeling, network science, and dynamic systems analysis, to the design of specific legal rules and general legal policies. This work has applications in areas such as innovation, racial segregation, network economics, commons governance, the legal system, public health and epidemics, and adaptive regulatory design.

AI and Agency Law

AI is now a part of everyday life, and “AI agents” operate autonomously in complex domains. Predating these artificial agents by hundreds of years, agency law governs the relationship between a principal and their trusted agent in many domains, including health, finance, legal services, and business management. According to agency law, agents owe fiduciary duties of loyalty and care to their principals. We research how AI systems can be compliant with these duties in contexts where they already exist. We also research how expanded fiduciary duties can address longstanding problems with the digital economy, such as conflicts of interests that arise with platforms, and incomplete contracting. This work is both actionable today with current implementations of AI, and a way to manage AI alignment in the long term to forestall catastrophic risks.