Legal consciousness in the tech community (research initiation)

How do computer scientists and software developers perceive the law? The aim of the initiation is to bring together scholars from legal science and computer science to discuss the issue of legal consciousness in the tech community. The legal regulation of technology, such as AI, has been a priority for policymakers worldwide over the past decade. Lawmakers are working to address and anticipate the socio-economic challenges that arise, or may arise, from the development and use of new technologies. Simultaneously, much of the regulatory burden is delegated to private entities, such as standardization bodies and social media platforms, which establish their own systems of governance. The actual implementation of these regulations falls however on the tech community, specifically software developers and engineers. This community is increasingly pressured to comply with the growing number of regulations while developing new technologies. Consequently, the question arises: How much is being “lost in translation” between these two professional groups?

The goal of the research initiation is to design a research project, which studies empirically the communication between lawyers and the tech community, with the goal of providing methodological tools to enhance the legal understanding of tech professionals who work with development of the new technology. The exchange of ideas will take place in the form of three workshops in 2025: on 25 April in Örebro, on 26 May in Turin (Italy), and on 16 June in Florence (Italy).