W5 - The Political Economy of Law and Technology

Political economy - overview

Political economy = framework that establishes relationship between markets, govts and society / where political ideologies intersect with economics to shape law + politics

Academic - Zuboff - overview

Surveillance capitalism - society organised based on the monetisation of human experience / thwarted tech’s democratic potential / instrumentarianism / tech reshaping understandings of privacy

Academic - Cohen - overview

Tech, law and political economy = mutually constitutive / information capitalism - info used for profit / law enabler of these transactions - both tech and law can be used positively + negatively

Zuboff vs Cohen

Zuboff - tech = unprecedented change / Cohen - continuity / Zuboff - law is absent / Cohen - law is facilitative

Academics - empires of AI

China-US trade war centred around tech - LLM, microchips, physical infrastructure / China near-monopoly over rare earth elements, US = frontier models and semiconductors / Taiwan chip war

Academic - Alarie - overview

AI could improve legal certainty + accessibility, but this doesn’t = greater justice

Academic - Beniger - overview

Info tech develops as a response to economics + organisational demands for control / tech designed to improve efficiency but also expand surveillance and social control