Artificial Intelligence and the Law - LAW00096M

«Back to module search

  • Department: The York Law School
  • Credit value: 10 ECTS
  • Credit level: M
  • Academic year of delivery: 2024-25
    • See module specification for other years: 2025-26

Module summary

This module introduces you to the emerging world of AI and law. It will encourage you to think creatively about AI, consider it in a variety of legal contexts, and engage with these ideas in practical scenarios.

Professional requirements

None required.

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Semester 2 2024-25

Module aims

The overall objective of this module is to help you understand how various areas of law apply to and regulate AI. The module will very much adopt a practical approach with an academic underpinning. It is designed to:

  • Introduce you to AI and help you think about how it can be understood from a legal perspective.
  • Provide you with an overview of what the current challenges are in making different areas of law 'future proof' when it comes to effectively regulating AI.
  • Teach you about certain areas of law (e.g. tort law, IP law, contract law) in light of the new challenges that AI creates, and how AI fits within the existing legal frameworks.
  • Enable you to think independently about what good regulation of AI looks like, to maximise its benefits and diminish its risks.
  • Help you explore how AI can play a role in making the legal and justice system more effective.

Module learning outcomes

When you have completed this module you should be able to demonstrate:

  • A practical and systematic understanding of how existing and proposed laws regulate AI systems.
  • An ability to analyse practical cases involving AI, and apply legal rules and concepts to these.
  • In-depth, critical knowledge about legal and wider regulatory issues caused by AI's increasing presence in society, and how these may be solved.
  • Insight and an ability to apply knowledge to think about suitable rules for AI systems in the future.
  • An ability to identify and critically evaluate academic perspectives on how AI and different areas of law interact.

Module content

Please find below a provisional overview of what each week covers:

Week 1: Lecture 1: Introduction to AI and the Law

Week 2: PBL Session 1: AI and Legal Personhood: Revisiting Roman Times (Law of Slavery)

Week 3: Lecture 2: AI and the Law of Obligations

Week 4: PBL Session 2: Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) and Liability: the Robotaxi Case

Week 5: PBL Session 3: Self-Driving Contracts

Week 6: First summative assessment

Week 7: Lecture 3: AI and IP law

Week 8: PBL session 4: Chatbots and Copyright Law: Robo-journalism on the Rise

Week 9: Lecture 4: Sales Law and Smart Technology

Week 10: PBL session 5: AI and Financial Regulation and Intermediaries

Week 11: PBL session 6: AI and Corporate Law: Robots in the Boardroom?

Weeks 13-15: Second summative assessment

Indicative assessment

Task % of module mark
Essay/coursework 30
Essay/coursework 70

Special assessment rules

None

Additional assessment information

The first essay will be on a topic covered in weeks 1-5.

The second essay will allow a choice between three questions based on the topics covered in weeks 7-11.

This will be reflected in both reassessments.

Indicative reassessment

Task % of module mark
Essay/coursework 30
Essay/coursework 70

Module feedback

Mark and personalised written feedback on summative assessments. Continuous feedback available in sessions on formative work.

Feedback will be provided within the Policy Turnaround Time.

Indicative reading

Ugo Pagallo, The Laws of Robots. Crimes, Contracts, and Torts (Springer 2013).

Ernest Lim and Phillip Morgan (eds), The Cambridge Handbook of Private Law and Artificial Intelligence (Cambridge University Press 2024).

Phillip Morgan (ed), Tort Liability and Autonomous Systems Accidents. Common and Civil Law Perspectives (Edward Elgar 2023).

Ryan Abott (ed), Research Handbook on Intellectual Property and Artificial Intelligence (Edward Elgar 2022).

Nydia Remolina and Aurelio Gurrea-Martinez (eds), Artificial Intelligence in Finance. Challenges, Opportunities and Regulatory Developments (Edward Elgar 2023).

M Hildebrandt, Smart Technologies and the End(s) of Law. Novel Entanglements of Law and Technology (Edward Elgar 2015).