Applying International Economic Law to Artificial Intelligence

In a scene perhaps befitting an Isaac Asimov-meets-Albert Camus short story, Amazon’s new household robot, Astro, will apparently throw itself down the stairs.1 If the artificial intelligence (AI) offered by a trillion-dollar company cannot manage the various boundaries within a home, it may seem too early to worry about AI crossing international borders. But, in fact, the world of international AI is already here. From search engines, to facial recognition, to the myriad services using cloud computing, to the tangible reality of the internet of things (IoT), AI is increasingly everywhere. Typically, these deployments of AI cross borders, implicating international economic law. Governments have taken note, with some announcing ambitious plans to regulate AI or to invest in AI, or both.2 Thus, a volume from international economic law experts analyzing AI from an array of perspectives is a welcome development. Consider just a few of the ways that...