CTJ | Ryan Calo - Law and Technology: A Methodical Approach

The UC Irvine Law Center for Law, Technology & Justice welcomes Professor Ryan Calo to discuss his book, Law and Technology: A Methodical Approach (Oxford University Press, 2025).

Publisher's Description
Technology is difficult to study, let alone regulate. While law is uniquely positioned to channel technology toward human flourishing, technology poses special challenges to law and governance, obscuring human will and responsibility, stalling regulatory action, and putting rights and values into constant defense. The consequences can be dire. The United States spent three decades without a plan for nuclear waste disposal and still lacks comprehensive privacy laws many years into the information revolution. Law and technology as a field, meanwhile, has yet to cohere.

In light of these challenges, Law and Technology: A Methodical Approach offers a defensible and consistent approach to the legal analysis of technology, one capable of navigating technology's capacity to confuse and confound. Ryan Calo puts forward a step-by-step methodology for thinking about and ultimately challenging technology to meet society's demands. The book demonstrates that, no less than health law or law and economics, law and technology deserves a field of its own. To this end, it helps formalize legal analysis of physical and digital artifacts and systems, sowing the seeds for the concept of law and technology itself.

About the Author
Ryan Calo is the Virginia and Prentice Bloedel Professor at the University of Washington. He is a founding co-director (with Batya Friedman and Tadayoshi Kohno) of the interdisciplinary UW Tech Policy Lab and a co-founder (with Chris Coward, Emma Spiro, Kate Starbird, and Jevin West) of the UW Center for an Informed Public. Professor Calo holds a joint appointment at the Information School and an adjunct appointment at the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering.

Professor Calo's research on law and emerging technology appears in leading law reviews and technical publications and is frequently referenced by the national media. He has testified four times before the United States Senate, most recently providing witness testimony on July 11, 2024 stressing the importance of a comprehensive federal privacy law that both protects Americans’ personal privacy and sets guidelines for businesses developing and implementing AI technology.

To request reasonable accommodations for a disability, please email centers@law.uci.edu.

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