Contracting and Contract Law in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Description

This book provides original, diverse, and timely insights into the nature, scope, and implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI), especially machine learning and natural language processing, in relation to contracting practices and contract law. The chapters feature unique, critical, and in-depth analysis of a range of topical issues, including how the use of AI in contracting affects key principles of contract law (from formation to remedies), the implications for autonomy, consent, and information asymmetries in contracting, and how AI is shaping contracting practices and the laws relating to specific types of contracts and sectors. The contributors represent an interdisciplinary team of lawyers, computer scientists, economists, political scientists, and linguists from academia, legal practice, policy, and the technology sector. The chapters not only engage with salient theories from different disciplines, but also examine current and potential real-world applications and implications of AI in contracting and explore feasible legal, policy, and technological responses to address the challenges presented by AI in this field. The book covers major common and civil law jurisdictions, including the EU, Italy, Germany, UK and the US. It should be read by anyone interested in the complex and fast-evolving relationship between AI, contract law, and related areas of law such as business, commercial, consumer, competition, and data protection laws. Preface Acknowledgements Contents Notes on Contributors PART I: FORMATION OF CONTRACT, AUTONOMY AND CONSENT 1. Mapping Artificial Intelligence: Perspectives from Computer Science I. Introduction II. The AI Seasons III. Big Data and Deep Learning IV. Artificial Intelligence and Law V. Conclusions 2. Artificial Intelligence, Contracting and Contract Law: An Introduction I. Introduction II. Contracting in the Age of AI III. Freedom of Contract and Party Autonomy IV. Pre-contractual Duties V. Formation of Contract VI. Defects in Consent VII. Incorporation of Standard Terms VIII. Interpretation IX. Fairness of Contracts X. Contractual Liability XI. Outlook 3. When AI Meets Smart Contracts: The Regulation of Hyper-Autonomous Contracting Systems? I. Introduction II. Hyper-Autonomous Contracting: Super-Smart Contracts? III. The 'Rule of Code'? Insights from Relational Contract Scholarship IV. Conclusion 4. A Philosophy of Contract Law for Artificial Intelligence: Shared Intentionality I. Introduction II. Artificial Intelligence in Contracting: Past, Present, and Future III. Objective Intent and the Attribution of Intentionality IV. Shared Intentionality as the Core of Contractual Obligation V. Conclusion 5. From Document to Data: Revolution of Contract Through Legal Technologies I. A New Season of the Contract II. Legal as a Product and Lawyers as Legal Tech Integrators III. The Legal Tech Software as a New Intermediary IV. Compliance and Regtech Through Contract Software V. Asymmetries and Clauses Evaluation VI. Conclusion PART II:
DRAFTING, AI TOOLS FOR CONTRACTING AND CONTRACT ANALYSIS, MANAGEMENT 6. Legal Tech Solutions for the Management of the Contract Lifecycle I. Introduction and Definitions II. Drafting Phase III. Review and Negotiation IV. e-Signing V. Storage and Post-signing Management VI. Analysis Through AI & Machine Learning VII. Choosing the Right Solution. Outsourcing, Custom Build Applications, No Code Solutions and Enterprise Marketplaces VIII. Conclusions IX. Appendix: Phases of the Contract Lifecycle and Providers Quoted in this Chapter 7. Building a Chatbot: Challenges under Copyright and Data Protection Law I. Introduction II. Technical Background of Chatbots III. Legal Framework for Building Chatbots IV. Conclusion 8. Legal Tech Solutions as Digital Services under the Digital Content Directive and E-Commerce Directive I. Introduction II. Do Legal Tech Services Fall within the Scope of the Digital Content Directive? III. Objective Conformity Criteria for Legal Tech Services IV. Legal Profession Rules as Objective Conformity Criteria under DCD? V. Possibility to Exclude or Limit Liability for Legal Tech Services in Standard Terms VI. Legal Tech Services and the Country-of-origin Principle of the E-Commerce Directive VII. Conclusion 9. Contracting in Code I. Introduction II. A Primer on Translation III. Logical Ancestors and the Formalistic Return IV. A Study of Code V. Observations and Implications VI. Emerging Frontiers 10. Summarising Multilingual Documents: The Unexpressed Potential of Deep Natural Language Processing I. Preliminaries II. The State of the Art of Automated Text Summarisation III. The Summarisation Pipeline IV. Legal Document Summarisation V. Conclusions and Future Research Directions PART III:
(NON-)PERFORMANCE, REMEDIES AND DISPUTE RESOLUTION 11. Remedies for Artificial Intelligence I. Introduction II. Overview of the Problems Raised by the Use of AI III. Defects in Consent IV. Force Majeure and Frustration V. Specific Performance VI. Damages VII. The Quest for Explainability VIII. Coding Law and Ethics into AI Algorithms IX. Conclusion 12. Artificial Intelligence and Platform Services: EU Consumer (Contract) Law and New Regulatory Developments I. Setting the Scene II. Online Platforms as a Driving Force for AI in Consumer Markets III. Instrumental Rationality of the EU acquis IV. A High Level of Consumer Protection in the Age of Platforms and AI V. Regulatory Developments: Proposed Artificial Intelligence and Digital Services Acts VI. Insights for EU Consumer (Contract) Law 13. Artificial Intelligence and Anticompetitive Collusion: From the 'Meeting of Minds' towards the 'Meeting of Algorithms'? I. Introduction 14. Artificial Intelligence and Contracts: Reflection about Dispute Resolution I. Introduction II. Smart Contract and Self-Driving Contract III. The Use of AI in Dispute Resolution IV. Conclusion Index