Durham Conference Asks the Hard Questions About AI and the Law
Durham Law School was pleased to host the inaugural Durham Dialogues on Law, Code & Society, a two-day interdisciplinary conference held at the Palatine Centre, bringing together legal scholars, computer scientists, policy experts and industry practitioners to examine the evolving relationship between law, technology and social life.
Day 1 - 11-June
The conference opened with a welcome address from Dr Mauricio Figueroa, followed by opening remarks from Dr Zhiyu Li, who outlined the intellectual framework of the event and introduced the themes connecting the papers and panels to follow.
What followed was a departure from the standard conference format. Rather than the familiar twenty-minute presentations, the organisers had designed something more challenging and more rewarding: structured workshop sessions, running in parallel, in which each paper received forty-five minutes of sustained engagement, a dedicated discussant, and an audience that had read the full draft in advance. Attendants and speakers acclaimed the format as a distinguishing element of the Dialogues from conventional conference proceedings.
Dr Kaspar Ludvigsen led one strand of sessions, in which two papers were workshopped with particular attention. Dr Aline Iramina of the University of Glasgow presented work on the governance of algorithms within the UK music streaming industry, a complex sector whose legal architecture is being constantly reshaped by the functioning of its recommender systems. Dr Figueroa of Durham Law School offered a paper on what he terms algorithmic entrenchment, bringing into view a process of technological dependency between legacy cultural producers and generative technology providers.
In the parallel sessions chaired by Dr Becca Owens, Dr Ezinne Igbokwe of the University of Sheffield examined algorithmic opacity and trade secret protection as they apply to AI-powered medical devices whereas Dr Livio Robaldo of Swansea University presented Teaching AI to Contextualize the Law, a paper that prompted one of the afternoon’s richest exchanges, thanks in no small part to the exceptionally detailed commentary offered by Dr Moritz Osnabrügge, Associate Professor in Quantitative Comparative Politics at Durham University, a clear reflection that the most useful feedback sometimes arrives from outside one’s own field.
Day 1 closed with a panel, moderated by Dr Stergios Aidinlis of Durham Law School. Sue McLean of Bird & Bird and Chair the Society for Computers and Law, Professor Noura Al Moubayed of Durham's Department of Computer Science, and Nuala Polo, UK Policy Lead at the Ada Lovelace Institute, approached the regulation of artificial intelligence from three complementary points of view. Yet on one matter they were in firm agreement: the question is no longer whether AI should be regulated, but how, and (with increasing urgency) when and for whom.
Day 2 – 12 June
The second morning opened with a book talk by Professor Benjamin Farrand of Newcastle University, presenting Geopolitical Union: Europe’s Attempt to Take Back Control of Technology Regulation. With responses from Dr Kaspar Ludvigsen, and an audience that drew both Durham academics and students. The session examined a thesis that will resonate with anyone watching Brussels with attention: that the European Commission has recast itself as a geopolitical actor, deploying technology regulation as an instrument of strategic interest. At the heart of these contests, Farrand argues, lies a set of questions that are as much political as legal: who produces technology, where it is produced, and who ultimately controls it.
Dr Aidinlis returned to the chair for the second panel, Regulating Identity and the Body: Biometrics, Facial Recognition and Surveillance Technologies, which featured contributions from Professor Catherine Easton of Lancaster University and Dr Pardis Tehrani of the University of Sunderland, both scholars who bring not only academic distinction but also significant leadership experience having served as heads of departments of their respective institutions.
The afternoon returned to the workshop format, with parallel sessions running simultaneously. Dr Figueroa chaired one strand, in which papers by Dr Kaspar Ludvigsen and Dr Jiahong Chen of the University of Sheffield were workshopped. Dr Zhiyu Li chaired the other, in which work by Dr Chao Wang of Durham Law School and a collaborative paper by Dr Owens, Dr Aidinlis and collaborators, were subject to in-depth discussion.
Every participant left with substantive feedback, specific suggestions and a clearer sense of where their research might go next. This reflects the research culture at Durham Law School that takes intellectual community seriously, and a commitment to the kind of slow, careful scholarship that the hardest questions demand.
The organisers acknowledged publicly, at the close of event, the professional services colleagues whose work made the event possible: Hayley Barnes, Alan Dobson, Hayley Hewitson, Elizabeth Tarbett and Megan Stenhouse.
The Durham Dialogues on Law, Code and Society was made possible through research funding awarded to Durham Law School via Flourish@Durham and the DLS Strategic Research Fund.
