Grigoleit, Hans Christoph, Blackboxing Law by Algorithm (June 16, 2022). Speech delivered at Oxford Business Law Blog Annual Conference on June 16, 2022

“This post is part of a special series including contributions to the OBLB Annual Conference 2022 on ‘Personalized Law—Law by Algorithm’, held in Oxford on 16 June 2022. This post comes from Hans Christoph Grigoleit, who participated on the panel on ‘Law by Algorithm’. “Adapting a line by the ingenious pop-lyricist Paul Simon, there are probably 50 ways to leave the traditional paths of legal problem solving by making use of algorithms. However, it seems that the law lags behind other fields of society in realizing synergies resulting from the use of algorithms. In their book ‘Law by Algorithm’, Horst Eidenmüller and Gerhard Wagner accentuate this hesitance in a paradigmatic way: while the chapter on ‘Arbitration’ is optimistic regarding the use of algorithms in law (‘… nothing that fundamentally requires human control …’), the authors’ view turns much more pessimistic when trying to specify the perspective of the ‘digital judge’. Following up on this ambivalence, I would like to share some observations on where and why it is not so simple to bring together algorithms and legal problem solving.”