Chapter 10 predicts the “future” of chilling effects – which today looks darker and more dystopian than ever in light of the proliferation of new forms of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation technologies in society. The author here introduces a new term “superveillance” to explain new forms of AI-driven systems of automated legal and social norm enforcement that will likely cause mass societal chilling effects at an unprecedented scale. The author also argues how chilling effects today enable this more oppressive future and proposes a comprehensive law and public policy reforms and solutions to stop it.

This chapter examines some ways in which human agency might be affected by a transition from legal regulation to regulation by AI. To do that, it elucidates an account of agency, distinguishing it from related notions like autonomy, and argues that this account of agency is both philosophically respectable and fits common sense. With that account of agency in hand, the chapter then examines two different ways – one beneficial, one baleful – in which agency might be impacted by regulation by AI, focussing on some agency-related costs and benefits of transforming private law from its current rule-based regulatory form to an AI-enabled form of technological management. It concludes that there are few grounds to be optimistic about the effects of such a transition and good reason to be cautious.

Radical political economy focuses on capitalism's ability for reproduction. Social reproduction refers to how human beings reproduce their existence. Globalization has seen a vast expansion of surplus labor or surplus humanity. The levels of worldwide inequalities are unprecedented, as is the extent of mass deprivation and precarity. Transnational capital has turned to new forms of unpaid labor to expand accumulation, helping to generate a worldwide crisis in gender relations. A new round of global enclosures is underway that includes land grabs around the world. The TCC is turning toward greater automation in both the traditional core and the traditional periphery, suggesting an increase in the production of relative surplus value relative to absolute surplus value. The global mining industry, and the case of the Congo, illustrate these transformations. As artificial intelligence spreads, professional work and knowledge workers also face deskilling, automation, and increased precariousness. Capitalist states could ameliorate the crisis through redistribution and regulatory policies, but they are constrained by the structural power of transnational capital.

Having looked at how firms develop innovations and bring them to market, and the role of entrepreneurs and states in shaping those processes, we turn now to the question of what innovations do to society. Innovations, after all, do not just concern the firms that create them. We begin at the most macro of macroscopic levels with Perez’s paper on technology bubbles, asking how societies are transformed through successive waves of technological revolution and what happens as those waves flood over society. Staying at the macroscopic perspective with Zuboff’s paper on Big Other, we look at how technological change transforms capitalist dynamics and ushers in both new logics of accumulation and new forms of exploitation. Then, we move to the question that the popular press tends to phrase as “Will robots take our jobs?” as we look at the history and future of workplace automation with Autor’s paper and Bessen’s analysis of the conditions that lead to widespread, as opposed to highly concentrated, societal gains from technology.

The chapter explores the implications of the growing integration of AI and robotics into the workforce, questioning whether it will lead to a golden age or a dystopian era. It emphasizes the transformative impact of these technologies on various industries, with robots taking over tasks from manufacturing and distribution to healthcare and caregiving. The benefits include increased productivity, efficiency, safety, flexibility, cost-savings, improved precision, and enhanced quality of life. However, concerns arise regarding potential job displacement and loss, particularly for low-skilled and low-paid workers. The passage discusses the likelihood of robots replacing up to half of all jobs in the coming decades, posing challenges for reemployment and skills adaptation. The issue of inequality is raised, highlighting that low-skilled workers may be disproportionately affected. The chapter also touches on the societal disruptions, identity crisis, and potential resistance that could emerge due to widespread automation. Various policy prescriptions are proposed to address these challenges, including investing in education, training, and reskilling, implementing a universal basic income (UBI), guaranteeing jobs, exploring job-sharing and reduced hours, and considering a tax on robot labor.

This chapter addresses the implications of the 100-year-life for the future of work and the law of work. To begin with, longer lives will pose severe actuarial challenges to all existing strategies for ensuring retirement income security. At least without a dramatic (and probably unjustified) shift of social welfare expenditures into support of nonworking seniors, most people will probably have to work longer, if they are healthy and able, to generate enough income for retirement. The chapter then turns to how the law of work might have to change to accommodate longer working lives. Leaving aside the law of age discrimination (addressed in another chapter), longer working lives will recast longstanding debates over job security and will highlight the need to make work and work schedules less demanding, especially as workers age. This chapter will explore these challenges and how demographic changes will intersect with changing technology and its impact on the nature and number of jobs.

This chapter roots the authors' insights about automated legal guidance in a broader examination of why and how to address the democracy deficit in administrative law. As this chapter contemplates the future of agency communications, it also explores in greater detail the possibility that technological developments may allow government agencies not only to explain the law to the public using automated tools but also to automate the legal compliance obligations of individuals. While automated legal compliance raises serious concerns, recent examples reveal that it may soon become a powerful tool that agencies can apply broadly under the justifications of administrative efficiency. As this chapter argues, the lessons learned from our study of automated legal guidance are critical to maintaining values like transparency and legitimacy, as automated compliance expands as a result of perceived benefits like efficiency.

The Conclusion emphasizes the growing importance of automated legal guidance tools across government agencies. It crystalizes the insight that automated legal guidance tools reflect a trade-off between government agencies representing the law accurately and presenting it in accessible and understandable terms. While automated legal guidance tools enable agencies to reach more members of the public and provide them quick and easy explanations of the law, these quick and easy explanations sometimes obscure what the law actually is. The Conclusion acknowledges and accepts the importance of automated legal guidance to the future of governance, and, especially in light of this acknowledgement, recommends that legislators and agency officials adopt the policy recommendations presented in this book.

As Chapter 4 demonstrated, automated legal guidance often enables the government to present complex law as though it is simple without actually engaging in simplification of the underlying law. While this approach offers advantages in terms of administrative efficiency and ease of use by the public, it also causes the government to present the law as simpler than it is, leading to less precise advice and potentially inaccurate legal positions. As the use of automated legal guidance by government agencies is likely to grow in the future, a number of policy interventions are needed. This chapter offers multiple detailed policy recommendations for federal agencies that have introduced, or may introduce, chatbots, virtual assistants, and other automated tools to communicate the law to the public. Our recommendations are organized into five general categories: (1) transparency; (2) reliance; (3) disclaimers; (4) process; and (5) accessibility, inclusion, and equity.

The Introduction presents an overview of the use of automated legal guidance by government agencies. It offers examples of chatbots, virtual assistants, and other online tools in use across US federal government agencies and shows how the government is committed to expanding their application. The Introduction sets forth some of the critical features of automated legal guidance, including its tendency to make complex aspects of the law seem simple. The Introduction previews how automated legal guidance promises to increase access to complex statutes and regulations. However, the Introduction cautions that there are underappreciated costs of automated legal guidance, including that its simplification of statutes and regulations is more likely to harm members of the public who lack access to legal counsel than high-income and wealthy individuals. The Introduction provides a roadmap for the remainder of the book.

This chapter sets forth how government agencies are using artificial intelligence to automate their delivery of legal guidance to the public. The chapter first explores how many federal agencies have a duty not only to enforce the law but also to serve the public, including by explaining the law and helping the public understand how it applies. Agencies must contend with expectations that they will provide customer service experiences akin to those provided by the private sector. At the same time, government agencies lack sufficient resources. The complexity of statutes and regulations significantly compounds this challenge for agencies. As this chapter illustrates, the federal government has begun using virtual assistants, chatbots, and related technology to respond to tens of millions of inquiries from the public about the application of the law.

This chapter illuminates some of the hidden costs of the federal agencies’ use of automated legal guidance to explain the law to the public. It highlights the following features of these tools: they make statements that deviate from the formal law; they fail to provide notice to users about the accuracy and legal value of their statements; and they induce reliance in ways that impose inequitable burdens among different user populations. The chapter also considers how policymakers should weigh these costs against the benefits of automated legal guidance when contemplating whether to adopt, or increase, agencies’ use of these tools.