Laws and Innovations

Globally debates are getting more heated with increased headlines about country censorship, government regulations and privacy concerns over technologies, innovations, freedom of internet, etc. At the meantime, it may be worthwhile to take a look at the situation with laws and technology innovations in general, in the US alone.

It seems a perpetual dilemma on where the boundary should be, of having the laws in place vs. letting the innovations roam freely. On one side, technologists typically fear regulations as innovations can only flourish without too much restrictions. On the other side, historically the appropriate laws could potentially level the competition fields so that small players can join and compete as well. For some cases, new laws are apparently needed in order to allow certain innovations to become commercially viable, for example, drone delivery. US FAA does not allow any commercial drone to fly over the US airspace and it could take years to change the stance. As a result, Google had to test their first drone flight in Australia this year and Amazon did theirs in Canada. In 2011, several years before the appearance of its first model, Google did push Nevada State to pass the law to allow driverless cars to test on the streets, but for drones, it hasn’t been that lucky.

It appears, either for the laws to restrict or promote innovations, the law setting process for many technology fields have been slow and inadequate, especially with today’s speed of innovations, as in robotics, drones, driverless cars, and many other instances. Commercial businesses have been the primary drivers for watching the laws, calling for the laws, initiating the debates or fighting the fights to either promote innovations and business or to get more freedom of access. The gap may exist not only in current legislative systems and processes, but also in legal educations. When many businesses need lawyers for new-technology related fights, either in the US or internationally, it’s simply difficult for them to find good lawyers who can understand the nuances of their technologies and at the same time know the related laws.

It may be promising to notice that today’s law schools and legal science departments are very busy paying attentions to technologies, either trying to apply technologies in their daily studies and practices, building applications or simply learning the basic technology concepts. Some law students start to fear that comprehensive applications that can walk through the basic laws by logical steps may even replace some of their jobs in the future. It is quite possible, but on the other hand, future complex laws and issues related to emerging technology innovations will be constantly demanding new types of tech-savvy lawyers.

One thing today’s lawyers definitely got it right: In the current real world, few problems can be solved by one discipline alone, including law, once a prestigious discipline in its closed aura. Cross-discipline studies have become increasingly important. Students and knowledge workers who often have diverse interest and pursue diverse experiences should take heart as different skills will be called upon one day or if one seeks. Equally, constant learning is always a required propensity.