laws as multiple presentation views on data (warning: techie)
article
"Robolawyer to Handle Clickwraps?"
adelord writes "Recently Wired published an essay (wired.com) by Mark D. Rasch describing the need for a 'browser-based automaton that could be adjusted to match your tolerance for legal mumbo jumbo' to help the user navigate the torrent of user agreements most of us click through without reading. Is this a job for Google Labs, and if not, who else would write the software for it? Do you think it is a good idea? While the legal exposure from writing software that partially fills the role of a lawyer could be enormous, I sure that it would have an ironclad user agreement that I would simply click through in my excitement to use it."
my comment
This article hints at something I've wanted to brainstorm around for a long time now: implementing laws and arguments as a suite of views on a set of data, instead of as they both currently are implemented: flat documents in the legislative and judicial respectively.
Pushes for plain-text legislation, while noble in intent, I take to be infeasable due to the innumerable intricacies of law--that is to say, there is no simple yet effective way to express certain complex legalities. But if instead of having one, and only one phrasing of a law, EULA, judicial argument, or whatever, we allow several VIEWS (ie phrasings intended for a specific audience) of the DATA (the semi-immutable concept that the document attempts to express).
We already accomplish this in lesser forms: an "executive summary" as part of a document is a classic example of rephrasing the meaning of a document for a specific audience.
Imagine if we wrote laws with a legaleese view, a summary view, a plain-english view, and a technical/medical/whatever'sapplicable view. The public would be served by reading the summary, nonlawyers that want to monitor their government would have the plainenglish, and specialists in the subjectmatter would have their applicable view. "How could that work, there's too much chance for conflict and deceit among the several views?" you may ask. We already undertake such a human risk when judges review law for interpretation. Only in this scenario, instead of one phrasing, the judge has MULTIPLE valid phrasings, each with it's own context, from which to pull interpretation. A natural heirarchy of where to pull what meaning could be established: If --a-- detail in the legaleese completely contradicts the basis of the executive summary, the summary holds more weight, as the summary is where one would state "overall intent". Contrarily, if the --totality-- of details in the legaleese and plain-english draw a conclusion other than the summaries', the summary is in need of revision.
I see applicability well beyond just laws, but they make for a good first thought. Eventually, I could even see this implemented as a document format where switching between views are as difficult as following hyperlinks, and view-preference-options are standardized so one can surf the net as different levels of readers. (patent it first and i got yer prior art right here, bitch ^_-) I could even see slashmoderation as a worthwhile inclusion to the concept.
Anyway, the whole idea's pretty alpha in my mind, and I'd love other ppl's thoughts.
"Robolawyer to Handle Clickwraps?"
adelord writes "Recently Wired published an essay (wired.com) by Mark D. Rasch describing the need for a 'browser-based automaton that could be adjusted to match your tolerance for legal mumbo jumbo' to help the user navigate the torrent of user agreements most of us click through without reading. Is this a job for Google Labs, and if not, who else would write the software for it? Do you think it is a good idea? While the legal exposure from writing software that partially fills the role of a lawyer could be enormous, I sure that it would have an ironclad user agreement that I would simply click through in my excitement to use it."
my comment
This article hints at something I've wanted to brainstorm around for a long time now: implementing laws and arguments as a suite of views on a set of data, instead of as they both currently are implemented: flat documents in the legislative and judicial respectively.
Pushes for plain-text legislation, while noble in intent, I take to be infeasable due to the innumerable intricacies of law--that is to say, there is no simple yet effective way to express certain complex legalities. But if instead of having one, and only one phrasing of a law, EULA, judicial argument, or whatever, we allow several VIEWS (ie phrasings intended for a specific audience) of the DATA (the semi-immutable concept that the document attempts to express).
We already accomplish this in lesser forms: an "executive summary" as part of a document is a classic example of rephrasing the meaning of a document for a specific audience.
Imagine if we wrote laws with a legaleese view, a summary view, a plain-english view, and a technical/medical/whatever'sapplicable view. The public would be served by reading the summary, nonlawyers that want to monitor their government would have the plainenglish, and specialists in the subjectmatter would have their applicable view. "How could that work, there's too much chance for conflict and deceit among the several views?" you may ask. We already undertake such a human risk when judges review law for interpretation. Only in this scenario, instead of one phrasing, the judge has MULTIPLE valid phrasings, each with it's own context, from which to pull interpretation. A natural heirarchy of where to pull what meaning could be established: If --a-- detail in the legaleese completely contradicts the basis of the executive summary, the summary holds more weight, as the summary is where one would state "overall intent". Contrarily, if the --totality-- of details in the legaleese and plain-english draw a conclusion other than the summaries', the summary is in need of revision.
I see applicability well beyond just laws, but they make for a good first thought. Eventually, I could even see this implemented as a document format where switching between views are as difficult as following hyperlinks, and view-preference-options are standardized so one can surf the net as different levels of readers. (patent it first and i got yer prior art right here, bitch ^_-) I could even see slashmoderation as a worthwhile inclusion to the concept.
Anyway, the whole idea's pretty alpha in my mind, and I'd love other ppl's thoughts.
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