How should societies act before they know enough about an emerging technology? And once they have acted, what should happen when new knowledge becomes available?

In a series of essays in Science, Urs Gasser, one of TransforM’s Principal Investigators, will examine how institutions navigate decision-making under technological uncertainty. In his first essay as one of Science’s “Expert Voices”, Urs explores a broader governance problem: how to identify what needs reconsideration as technologies and knowledge change.

Since 2014, people in Europe have been able to ask search engines to remove links to personal information about them under certain condition – the so-called right to be forgotten. Generative AI is changing that information environment again. Rather than returning lists of links, these systems can synthesize information from many sources, reproduce personal information encountered during training, or generate claims without revealing where they came from. This raises new questions regarding our rights to be forgotten.

Does the rise of generative AI mean the law needs to change again?

“Perhaps”, Gasser writes. “But the question bundles together different things that might, or might not, need changing.”

Gasser distinguishes between three elements that may need reconsideration as digital technologies change:

• The underlying purpose or value – What is an intervention trying to protect or achieve?
• The legal rule – How has that purpose or value been translated into rights, duties, prohibitions, or allocations of responsibility?
• The operational mechanisms – How is the rule put into practice?

Read the full essay here.

This essay is the first in a series. Science launched “Expert Voices” for topics that need more space than its Editorial page allows. In Science’s words, the feature brings together “a stable of columnists who will write several times a year on matters of concern within their fields that are also likely to interest nonexperts.” Urs Gasser’s contributions will focus on how institutions make decisions amid technological uncertainty – and how they reconsider those decisions as knowledge and circumstances change, drawing on examples from AI, law, and public policy.

Urs Gasser is Professor of Public Policy, Governance and Innovative Technology, Rector of the Hochschule für Politik München, and Dean of the School of Social Sciences and Technology, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany.