Ryan Calo

M. Ryan Calo runs the research around privacy and robotics, including the Disclosure by Design and Legal Aspects of Autonomous Driving Projects. Prior to joining the law school in 2008, Calo was an associate at Covington & Burling, LLP, where he advised companies on issues of data security, privacy, and telecommunications.

Calo researches and presents on the intersection of law and technology. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Associated Press, the Wall Street Journal, and other news outlets. Calo serves on several advisory and program committees, including the Future of Privacy Forum, the Mozilla Legal Advisory Board, and National Robotics Week. He also co-chairs the American Bar Association Committee on Robotics and Artificial Intelligence.

Calo received his JD cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School, where he was a contributing editor to the Michigan Law Review and symposium editor of the Journal of Law Reform, and his BA in Philosophy from Dartmouth College. In 2005-2006, he served as a law clerk to the Honorable R. Guy Cole Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Prior to law school, Calo was an investigator of allegations of police misconduct in New York City.

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/rcalo

Who Will Regulate Robots?

By Ryan Calo • January 20, 2012 at 3:51 pm

As robots leave the factory and battlefield and enter our homes, hospitals, and skies, it is not clear who will come to regulate them. But we can begin to spot some interesting patterns. Students of this transformative technology should keep their eye on both the claims and disavowals of authority over robots by state and federal agencies. Each hold potential dangers for our civil liberties and for the future of robotics. Read more » about Who Will Regulate Robots?

To Catch With A Predator

By Ryan Calo • December 12, 2011 at 1:27 pm

The Los Angeles Times quotes me over the weekend in its front page story about the use of a Predator B drone to catch a civilian suspect in North Dakota. In my comments, I allude to how the domestic use of drones may paradoxically help drag privacy law into the twenty-first century. Stanford Law Review Online just published my short article on this topic. You can find the full text here. Thoughts welcome. Read more » about To Catch With A Predator

We Robot: Call For Papers

By Ryan Calo • November 20, 2011 at 1:11 pm

The University of Miami School of Law is hosting a conference on the legal and policy aspects of robotics in April 2012 (the same month as National Robotics Week). I am on the program committee and wanted to share the call for papers. Full conference website here. Call for papers after the jump. Read more » about We Robot: Call For Papers

The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Or: Why Weak AI Is Interesting Enough

By Ryan Calo • August 30, 2011 at 7:29 am

Not many people in the legal academy study artificial intelligence or robotics. One fellow enthusiast, Kenneth Anderson at American University, posed a provocative question over at Volokh Conspiracy yesterday: will the Nobel Prize for literature ever go to a software engineer who writes a program that writes a novel?

What I like about Ken’s question is its basic plausibility. Software has already composed original music and helped invent a new type of toothbrush. It does the majority of stock trading. Software could one day write a book. A focus on the achievable is also what I find compelling about Larry Solum’s exploration of whether AI might serve as an executor of a trust or Ian Kerr’s discussion of the effects of software agents on commerce. Read more » about The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Or: Why Weak AI Is Interesting Enough

Guest Blogging At Concurring Opinions

By Ryan Calo • August 11, 2011 at 9:11 pm

I'm guest blogging over at Concurring Opinions this month. My first post explored what the domestic use of drones would mean for privacy law. I also did a two-part post on "DRM for Privacy." Here is the first post. And the second. Excerpt below. Thoughts welcome.

Online privacy has been getting quite a bit of attention of late. But the problem seems as intractable as ever. In a pair of posts, I will explore one aspect of the online privacy debate and, drawing from a controversial corner of copyright law, suggest a modest fix. This first post discusses the problem of consumer tracking and the lack of any good solutions. You may want to skip this post if you are familiar with the online privacy ecosystem (and uninterested in correcting my oversimplifications and mistakes). The next post discusses how an often criticized provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act—the anti-circumvention clause—might hold lessons for consumer privacy. This provision prohibits tampering with so-called digital rights management. The law has its problems as a mechanism to enforce copyright. As applied to consumers’ efforts to protect their privacy, however, a few of Section 1201’s bugs metamorphose into features. Read more » about Guest Blogging At Concurring Opinions

Ryan Calo

CIS Speakers Series - Sonia Katyal

National Robotics Week

Legal Frontiers in Digital Media

Conference on Web Privacy Measurement (WPM)

Ryan Calo

Pages

Pages

Pages

Pages