Course in the Module "New Issues in Socio-legal Studies I" (1,5 ECTS)
I will mention some of the most relevant technological advances for Law based on artificial intelligence, which are: transhumanism, neuroscience and biotechnology.
1. Transhumanism
Before providing a definition of “transhumanism”, it is necessary to dwell on an axiom defended by the main defender and representative philosopher of this trend, the Swede Nick Bostrom. According to him, homo sapiens sapiens does not represent the zenith of evolution and should still reach an evolutionary excellence it has not achieved. Thanks to the advances of Artificial Intelligence, the human species is evolving towards post-humanism, being the stage of transhumanism an intermediate stage of this evolution.
Nick Bostrom defines transhumanism as “the cultural, intellectual and scientific movement that affirms the moral duty to improve the physical and cognitive capacities of the human species, and to apply new technologies to man, so that unwanted and unnecessary aspects of the human condition, such as suffering, disease, aging and even mortality, can be eliminated”. There are also authors who warn that transhumanism represents a risk for the liberal legal order of Western democracies, for the culture of human rights, and even for the anthropological dimension of the human individual.
2. Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the set of sciences “that study the biological bases of the brain, based on its neural analysis in order to explain and understand it”. As the advances in the field of neuroscience have been so spectacular in the last decades, there have been advances that directly affect Law. Taking into account that law is an instrument that has been based on concepts that support the autonomy and independence, central concepts of a general theory of law such as “will” and “freedom” are profoundly affected by these advances. Moreover, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 rests on a type of human being that is very different from that presented by technological advances.
3. Biotechnology
Biotechnology is not strictly speaking a branch of artificial intelligence, but as algorithmic operations are increasingly being used for research in this field, it is interesting to refer to it as a field directly related to artificial intelligence. Biotechnology is defined as “any technological application that uses biological systems and living organisms or their derivatives to create or modify products or processes for specific uses”. Today, assistive biotechnologies are reaching a continuous and decisive application, influencing the human being in a sensitive way. This requires a legal framework and a law of its own, what the jurist Luisa Escobar calls “biolegislation”, which allows materializing the principle of legal certainty in this specific field.
