Rise of the Robots: The Harm Behind the Hype

NOTE: THIS EVENT IS NOW FULL AND GARDEN COURT ARE NOT RUNNING A WAITING LIST. APOLOGIES IF YOU DIDN’T MANAGE TO REGISTER. Please do Sign up to our mailing list to get notice on upcoming events. 
A half day event for researchers and legal practitioners interested in challenging public authorities on their unfair use of AI and algorithms, presented by Garden Court in partnership with Public Law Project.

This event if free with limited capacity.  To book please visit the Garden Court website:

Rise of the Robots: The Harm Behind the Hype | Events | Garden Court Chambers |

The current wave of alarmist hype around Artificial Intelligence focuses on the potential for existential risk in the future use of Artificial Intelligence imagining a dystopian future when AI takes over from human beings. For marginalised communities the risk is not this dystopian future. It is the harm suffered now.

Globally, AI used in and by public and private entities has resulted in denial of access to welfare benefits, access to housing, employment and over-policing and discrimination in migration owing to systemic bias in data and parameter setting.

NGOs and Lawyers report difficulties in even discovering whether algorithms are being used by public services let alone obtaining evidence and challenging the outcomes. The direction of travel in regulation has shown a government committed to reducing or removing some existing safeguards and reluctant to regulate to ensure transparency, accountability or provide access to an available remedy.

This practical conference is designed both to explore and give participants tools to:

Discover how and where Automated Decision Making and Artificial Intelligence is being used in decision making by public authorities.
Develop legal strategies to challenge unfair algorithm use and decisions.
Identify and gather evidence to support their cases.
This conference is for researchers and legal practitioners interested in challenging public authorities on their unfair use of AI and algorithms.

This conference is part of a series by PLP, the last two events took place in 2021 and 2020 are available to view here and here respectively.

Programme

13:30 Registration

14.00 Introduction to Automated Decision Making and AI, public law and discrimination – Why should we care?

• Shameem Ahmad, CEO, Public Law Project

14:10 Part 1: Where and how is AI being used by government? What tools do we have at our disposal to challenge unfair use or decision making?

Current state of play with AI/ADM and Government

• Mia Leslie, Public Law Project

Discrimination and Equality

• Nicola Braganza KC, Garden Court Chambers
• Ariane Adam, 1MCB
• Yara Ali-Adib, Equality and Human Rights Commission

Human Rights and risk assessments

• Louise Hooper, Garden Court Chambers

AI and Product Liability

• Abigail Holt, Garden Court Chambers

15:30 Break

15:55 Part 2: Evidence Gathering

Effective use of Freedom of Information Act requests

Resorting to the Information Commissioner’s Office

Using technology to gather evidence and test results

16:20 Break

16:45 Workshops

Facilitated workshops will be held to implement learning and strategies facilitated by lawyers and NGOs using real world examples and data on the TAG register.

Recognising that this is a developing area of law we also encourage participants to bring and share their own experiences, questions and challenges. We hope to learn from each other what has been going well and what has not worked. We envisage these to be hands on and if there is anything in particular you would like to discuss please do not hesitate to contact us in advance.

Delegates are invited to select one of the facilitated workshops below:

Immigration

• Bijan Hoshi, Garden Court Chambers & Public Law Project
• Jonah Mendelsohn, Privacy International

Welfare

• Tim Baldwin, Garden Court Chambers

Education

• Louise Hooper, Garden Court Chambers
• Jen Persson, Defend Digital Me &
• Kruakae Pothong, LSE visiting research fellow

18:10 Wrap up and Conclusions

18:30 Networking Drinks

This event if free but there is limited capacity.   To book please go to the Garden Court website events page:
Rise of the Robots: The Harm Behind the Hype | Events | Garden Court Chambers | Leading Barristers located in London, UK