AI is operating at an unknown intersection of opportunity and regulation – what does that mean for business?
Hogan Lovells host Leopold von Gerlach and Mary-Rose McGuire, an academic leader on the intersection of IP and technology, and Hogan Lovells host Leopold von Gerlach explore the necessity and opportunities of an interdisciplinary approach to AI, and what that means for the law.
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[Music] welcome to season 2 of the influencers we’ve expanded our scope to bring you interviews with some of the most interesting and thoughtful voices from the digitally driven seismic transformation happening at the intersection of law business and technology we’ll be sharing with you the rapidly evolving information that you need to know hello everybody and welcome to another session of the influencers with conversations on the digital transformation and law I’m Leo Von gurock and with me today is Mary Rose mcquire Mary Rose is an ordinary Professor a full Professor so to say at the European legal Studies Institute of the University of osnap and she is a speaker she’s the speaker of the newly founded re Research Unit law and data economy that ties obviously very well into one of the focus areas of the University of osar Brook who has just founded a newly AI campus and that’s one of the topics we want to speak about today as is the AI Act of the European Union but perhaps before we do so Mary Rose you just share with us what you’re working on at the moment what keeps you busy sure thank you for inviting me I think it’s a good chance to actually describe what the university can contribute to this area of research I personally hold a chair for private law IP law and German European civil procedure at first glance that sounds like three entirely different areas of law but in practice they really tie into each other my starting point always is the question how we can foster innovation in the field of technology so this requires three things obviously the first step is the protection of the technology itself usually by IP rights such as patents and Trade Secrets copyrights maybe or by means of other legal constructions as we now for example see with the data act which is coming up on the level of the European Union so my main research focus is IP law and neighboring issues such as the data act but IP law is just a good starting point there are two further requirements for spreading Innovation the second is a good and secure infrastructure for sharing Innovation usually that’s a contractual agreement it could be a transfer or license agreement and that’s why I also hold a chair for private law and my main focus here is contracts licens contracts of course is one of my favorite research subjects and the third requirement is legal certainty meaning that all actors in the ma Market must know which law applies and that it will be enforced if they don’t act in alignment and that is what civil procedure or as I call it crossborder litigation is all about so private law IP law and crossb litigation so this short answer to my research area is is my research team and I we work on how we can protect upcoming technology and securely share it without stifling Innovation okay now I fully understand why everybody calls you the world expert on the edge of Ip and technology and I think that ties in nicely with what the university wants to achieve in one of its latest activities and that’s the foundation of this new AI campus perhaps you tell us a bit of what the story is behind that campus and how that ties into your own work well I assume that not everyone listening knows where osab Brook actually is osab Brook is a small I would say University Town in nor of Germany it is a small University by comparison to other German uh universities so our approach is that we don’t cover all research areas or faculties so for example you couldn’t study medicine in oenb but what we do we strive to do well and we have renowned faculties for mathematics computer science philosophy and cognitive science business and law so the AI campus seeks to combine all these faculties but it’s nothing which was founded out of the blue it really is that the AI campus Builds on a long-term profile development in the fields of artificial intelligence so there were research oriented units in computer science cognitive science business informatics mathematics they all had research groups originally the new thing about this AI campus is that the separate research units of the different faculties are added they are joined together and they all have a common research topic they focus on AI and really everyone combines its own perspective its methodology and we work on common projects that’s super important because it’s not a retical and the we really work in actual project with our project partners and we seek to make it work from all the different disciplines and perspectives so I’ve mentioned that there have been research units for cognitive science and business information and so on so where does law come in actually the legal department just joined this project few years ago we for instance were working in a project on Smart farming and our approach is that we have to ensure that everything which is developed the business model model but also the technological tools that they will be apt for running in practice it’s not just a technical issue it must be the possibility to actually use them lawfully and that’s our task so we work with the project Partners we look into what they’re developing and perhaps there are two different technological possibilities to solve a problem and then the lawyers come in and say well if you do it this way this entails the following duties or there’s the following problem coming up why not choose a different version of this so lawyers often work they look at something which has happened and then they State what the law is or maybe they criticize the Judiciary but this is totally different we have to look years ahead and say what is developed today will go in the market in three or five years what will the framework be in a few years from now and that’s why we work closely with those who actually develop these models and tools and that’s really what makes it so fascinating well I can only a test that I have been following you and your Institute for a couple of years and it’s just impressive yeah how you drive this interdisciplinary just approach which seems to be so pertinent I think for the problems that we have to tackle at the um at the time and still I think those problems are very Broad in nature but perhaps let’s try to narrow them down a little bit further you mentioned um at the beginning something about data data economy data license ing would it be fair that the data economy and how to treat data from the technology side from the legal side from the contractual side is one of those area you are particularly concerned with yes of course and I can give you one example we’re working on Project of smart farming now smart farming means they’re using all these new connectivity Tools in order to make farming more sustainable they need for instance less water or less resour sources of course how does it work the data is combined to find out more details about a certain batch of land for example now data from a technological perspective is just information but then if you take a legal view it may be all sorts of different things it may be a trade secret it may be a copyrighted database it could be uh a patented Innovation it could be personal data which you’re not allowed to use so what we’re doing is we’re looking at the technological solutions and the data stream and we’re trying to find out how you can you construe it to make sure that it meets all the legal requirements for instance if it’s a trade secret you have to protect it you have to make sure that whomever you share it with will also ensure that it doesn’t leak out or if it’s personal data you have to ensure May well maybe we have to exchange the data or synthesize data or whatever to make sure that it is lawful to actually Implement what is going on the market later on now when it comes to research there are a lot of exceptions for research and development and you may make use of it but then what’s the point of having a an exception for data mining or maybe using of copyrighted or patented inventions if then later on you want to develop it into a business model they will not be able to rely on these research exceptions so we work with a lot of product project partners and our emphasis is not is it lawful today but will it be possible to put this model on the market in for years from now and this requires to look at exactly the data stream and optimize it from a legal perspective well that’s very very interesting because as you said we are just confronting with something new I mean we had data protection but that’s something a very specific aspect of protective rights against some form of intrusion but we are speaking here about something different and perhaps more comprehensive turning data into commercial assets and just giving full light to this new class of right and asset and clearly that needs to be supported by law and legislation and that perhaps brings me to the question well we see so many legislative attempts proposals drafts coming in particular from the European Union let’s say the AI act the act the data governance act um your overall take is that supportive does that go in the right direction what’s your view in the broader scheme well I guess it really depends on the perspective if you take a close look at the different texts um there is a lot of room for improvement obviously and many suggestions have been made for instance with regard to the AI act and some of them are very sound I think some of the definitions need more refin finding then perhaps some of the duties are just too broad or too strict in particularly when we look at small and medium Enterprises we don’t want to sty for Innovation there is a lot of criticism that the terms are big that the obligations are unclear that they’re too far reaching and then really no one knows how you could actually comply with them look at all these documentation duties coming in both under the data Act and the AI act so how would a small and medium Enterprise actually fulfill all this um requ requirements how long do they have to keep all this uh information does it require blockchain technology in order to when a lawsuit comes up in 10 years to actually provide evidence on them so on the micro level I think it’s quite obvious that there’s a lot of room for improvement and I understand that not everyone is totally happy what’s coming out of the European Union so the answer may be no but if you look at it at the same acts from a different perspective so a big picture I think actually it is a very good development because these different regulations the AI regulation the data act they establish a common document we can take as a starting point for our discussion and it establishes definitions and a common terminology so we actually know what we’re talking about and I think the European Union also takes a very clear stance on the values it seeks to protect so the aim is to preserve our European core values even If this means that we have to restrict technology and that’s a very clear commitment we also expect that there may be a similar effect as the gdpr had um the gdpr had a very strong influence on other regions in the world it really established a common standard and of course also when it comes to data protection the rule is not without fault probably it’s too strict but it established a new standard which Spilled Out to other countries and made us able to negotiate with them so I think it’s a good starting point and a good basis and I hope that the same would hold true for the current European data strategy and AI Act and the data act that’s that’s no thank you that’s a very positive overall positive take on the legislation there is a challenge though because the legislation is always driven by events taking place in technology and technological development and that is going faster and faster and faster as as time progresses so there is always the risk that the legislation lags behind and the challenge to catch up is that a particular risk for a legislation that tries to be as specific as we have on the European draft Arena right now or what’s the solution to that problem of speed and Pace I fully acknowledge it is a problem but I don’t think there’s a solution because the legislative process is not well adapted to fast techn technological changes that’s just a fact if we look at how democracy in Europe works if all the member states should be involved in all the Committees and all the stakeholders and everyone has a word to say then we can’t expect legislation in two or three months it just doesn’t work we can’t have all of it and I think a good comparison or a good concept to look at it is the comparison with the patent system the patent system also lacks Behind The Innovation cycle is faster than the patent system so if you look at the granting procedure of her patent may take two and a half or three or even seven years and of course by the time actually the patent is granted the Innovation is not new anymore but it doesn’t mean that the patent system is not valuable it’s a very reliable system but if you’re looking for genuine Innovation probably the patent register is not the place to look for so the same is with when we look at the legislation of the European Union it can set a standard it provides a framework and a terminology with which we can work but it probably will not solve all the questions we have and not all the problems as to the criticism on whether the European legislator should push forward I think a good test would be what is actually the alternative if the European Union would not push forward we would see National Data strategies in half of the European countries and probably nothing at all in the other half of the European Union countries because they have other current issues and I think even if it’s not a perfect framework it’s good that it is a uniform framework I think that is a very wise approach and we should not I mean we should be ambitious but not overly ambitious when it comes to the expectation towards just legislation and how that corresponds to the latest developments in technology we will always need to work on that and just work on the edges and make it a little bit better so that was very very helpful very insightful thank you so much Mar Rose um I love to talk with you um and thank you of course everybody for joining in and I hope you join again to our next episode which will be forthcoming soon with that have a good day all and take care goodbye visit our digital assets and blockchain hub at engag premium. 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