• Projects

• Research Area 1

P3 | Law: The Juridification of ComAI

• Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulz

In this project we trace the juridification in the field of ComAI. We focus on the legal frameworks for conversational bots (specifically ChatGPT) and social bots (specifically on X/Twitter and Facebook), first, from the perspective of communications law, and second, emerging AI regulation.

The project centers around the legal situation in Germany, reconstructing basic concepts of media law like “personhood”, “opinion” and “expression”. The project will also cover the current and soon-to-be-enacted EU legislation—namely the “AI Act”, on which a political agreement was reached in December 2023 based on the EU Commission’s proposal—to include the constructions underlying regulation of ComAI.

It will undertake a functional comparison with UK, AUT and US legal contexts to include more approaches to the ongoing juridification. Our focus lies on how legal definitions and concepts are part of the sociomaterial constitution of ComAI and which elements and connections of hybrid figurations are legally significant. In these ways, the project addresses the challenges of hybrid forms of agency from a legal perspective.

PUBLICATIONS:

• Grafenstein, M. v., & Schulz, W. (2015). The right to be forgotten in data protection law: A search for the concept of protection. International Journal of Public Law and Policy, 5(3): 249-269, DOI:10.1504/IJPLAP.2015.075049. 
• Hepp, A., Loosen, W., Dreyer, S., Jarke, J., Kannengießer, S., Katzenbach, C., . . . Schulz, W. (2022). Von der Mensch-Maschine-Interaktion zur kommunikativen KI. Publizistik, 67(4), 449-474. Doi: 10.1007/s11616-022-00758-4.
• Hepp, A., Loosen, W., Dreyer, S., Jarke, J., Kannengießer, S., Katzenbach, C., . . . Schulz, W. (2023). ChatGPT, LaMDA and the hype around Communicative AI: The automation of communication as a field of research in media and communication studies. Human-Machine Communication, 6, 41-63. Doi: 10.30658/hmc.6.4.
• Kettemann, M. C., Schulz, W. (2020): Setting Rules for 2.7 Billion. Working Papers of the Hans-Bredow-Institut | Works in Progress, 1, January 2020. Doi:10.21241/ssoar.71724.
• König, P.D, Krafft, T.D, Schulz, W., Zweig, K.A (2022): Essence of AI. What is AI?. In DiMatteo, L.A, Poncibo, C., Cannarsa, M: The Cambridge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence: Global Perspectives on Law and Ethics, 18-34 (28-29). DOI:10.1017/9781009072168.005.
• Kurtz, C., Wittner, F., Semmann, M., Schulz, W., & Böhmann, T. (2019). The Unlikely Siblings in the GDPR Family. Proceedings of the 52^nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. https://hdl.handle.net/10125/59943.
• Schulz, W., Dankert, K. (2016). ‘Governance by Things’ as a Challenge to Regulation by Law. Internet Policy Review, 5(2). DOI:10.14763/2016.2.409.
• Schulz, W., Dankert, K. (2017). Informationsintermediäre. Informatik-Spektrum, 40(4): 351-354. DOI:10.1007/s00287-017-1058-x. 
• Schulz, W., Dreyer, S, (2019). The general data protection regulation and automated decision-making. Gütersloh: Bertelsmann-Stiftung. DOI: 10.11586/2018018. 
• Schulz, W., Schmees, J. (2022). Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der Künstlichen Intelligenz in der Rechtsanwendung. In I. Augsberg, G.F. Schuppert, R. Römhildt, (Eds.), Handbuch Wissen und Recht. (pp. 561-593) Wiesbaden: Nomos. DOI:10.5771/9783748921479-561.