An Interdisciplinary Approach to Multi-agent Systems: Bridging the Gap between Law and Computer Science

• Autore: Migle Laukyte
• Pagine: 223-224

An Interdisciplinary Approach to Multi-agent Systems:

Bridging the Gap between Law and Computer Science

MIGL E LAUKY TE∗

SUMM ARY:1. Introduction – 2. Law and the Development of MASs – 3. The Interdis-

ciplinary Idea of Boundary Objects – 3.1. Communities of Practice as Users of Bound-

ary Objects – 3.2. Lawyers and Computer Scientists: Two CPs on Different Sides of the

Same Boundary Object - The Artif‌icial Agent – 4. Autonomy as an Interface between

Law and Computer Science – 4.1. The Concept of Autonomy – 4.2. The Concept of

Autonomy in Law – 4.3. The Legal Autonomy of Artif‌icial Agents – 5. Closing Re-

marks

1. INT RODU CTI ON

Research in Multi-agent Systems - MASs has given rise to new issues in

sociology, psychology, philosophy, and other social sciences, all the while

providing new insights into some abiding issues. But legal science has not

quite responded to these developments: the computational simulation of

legally relevant social activities and phenomena is a research area that has

yet to hit its stride. Why is that so? And what can be done to encourage the

development of such simulation?

This paper attempts to answer these questions by developing two related

ideas that, if brought to fruition, could change the current situation for the

better: the f‌irst is the interdisciplinary idea of a boundary object ; the second,

that of an agent’s autonomy.

As concerns the f‌irst idea, that of boundary objects, I argue that an impor-

tant reason why the simulation of legal phenomena is not making as much

headway as legal scholars and computer scientists would like is a certain lan-

guage barrier that lawyers and computer scientists (in particular, software

engineers) have to overcome if they are to achieve the sort of f‌luent commu-

nication needed to create a successful legal MAS. I do not speculate about the

causes of this language barrier, but I do point out that one way in which it

can be taken down is through an approach that – by bringing to bear the so-

ciological concept of a boundary object, understood as an interactive object

∗The Author is a Max WeberFellow at the European UniversityInstitute (EUI), Florence

(Italy). Her studies focus on different aspects of the intersection among science, society,

and new technologies, and she is particularly interested in investigating the role of law in

mediating between scientif‌ic innovation and societal needs.

“Informatica e diritto”, Vol. XXII, 2013, n. 1, pp. 223-241

XXXIX annata – Seconda Serie - Fasc. monografico S. Faro, N. Lettieri (a cura di), "Law and Computational Social Science", ESI, Napoli, 2013, 352 p.