Working in a field where we're required to define things with mathematical precision, it's frustrating listening to lawyers and judges fl...
Working in a field where we're required to define things with mathematical precision, it's frustrating listening to lawyers and judges flail about trying to figure out how to interpret laws. I don't want to claim that the law is a trivial matter and that it could be replaced with software, but I do think our legal system could be greatly enhanced with some ideas in math and software development. There are always going to be ambiguity in legal matters, but that doesn't mean we can't greatly reduce that ambiguity with good tools. I know this is a really tall order, but one idea in particular I'd like to see is the introduction of some sort of unit testing or model checking during the legislative process where legal scenarios are parameterized and enumerated to act as a guide for legislators, lawyers and judges. I'd love to see something like Alloy ( http://alloy.mit.edu/alloy/ ) be implemented in a way that non-programmers could use to model check things like bylaws by guiding the user through ambiguous and conflicting scenarios. I'm not suggesting we try to make laws satisfiable. What I am suggesting is that we model them in a way that highlight and distinguish the laws that are poorly crafted from those which are clearly interpreted. Legal ambiguity is really expensive weight on our society. Not only does this sort of ruling create investment uncertainty, it benefits incumbents who can buy armies of lawyers and intimidate competitors with drawn out lawsuits. Our legal system should be the great equalizer, but it will never be as long as we let judges and lawyers convince us to resign that our current system "is as good as it gets".
Posted by steego on Jun 29, 2015, 2:36 PM
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IMO it's a bit more nuanced than what the author portrays it as.
NewIn the UK Amazon have now raised the price of general shipping to be 2/3 the price of a months prime subscription.
Credit where credit is due, critics claiming "[Apple device] is too expensive for something that just does [basic function]" have been pr...
I like to buy music.
Meet K-Claw.
Fable is way too expensive for basic software stuff.
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Working in a field where we're required to define things with mathematical precision, it's frustrating listening to lawyers and judges fl...
Working in a field where we're required to define things with mathematical precision, it's frustrating listening to lawyers and judges flail about trying to figure out how to interpret laws. I don't want to claim that the law is a trivial matter and that it could be replaced with software, but I do think our legal system could be greatly enhanced with some ideas in math and software development. There are always going to be ambiguity in legal matters, but that doesn't mean we can't greatly reduce that ambiguity with good tools. I know this is a really tall order, but one idea in particular I'd like to see is the introduction of some sort of unit testing or model checking during the legislative process where legal scenarios are parameterized and enumerated to act as a guide for legislators, lawyers and judges. I'd love to see something like Alloy ( http://alloy.mit.edu/alloy/ ) be implemented in a way that non-programmers could use to model check things like bylaws by guiding the user through ambiguous and conflicting scenarios. I'm not suggesting we try to make laws satisfiable. What I am suggesting is that we model them in a way that highlight and distinguish the laws that are poorly crafted from those which are clearly interpreted. Legal ambiguity is really expensive weight on our society. Not only does this sort of ruling create investment uncertainty, it benefits incumbents who can buy armies of lawyers and intimidate competitors with drawn out lawsuits. Our legal system should be the great equalizer, but it will never be as long as we let judges and lawyers convince us to resign that our current system "is as good as it gets".
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