Should law adapt to tech or should tech adapt to the norms of law, asks Prof Upendra Baxi – Business Line about SaiU Endowment Lecture
Prof. Upendra Baxi, renowned jurist and former Vice Chancellor of Delhi University delivered the first S. Krishnamurti Endowment Lecture in Law organised by School of Law, Sai University.
The lecture titled ‘The Law’s Soft Technology governing Hard Technologies?’ explored the question of whether the law itself may be conceived as technology and if so what kind of technology it may be.
He mentioned that the US Defence Department has, in an unconscious irony described “drones” — non-lethal automatic weapons systems, the first letters of which acronymise as LAWS! He found the idea of law as an ‘enterprise’ to subject human behaviour advocated by jurist Lon Fuller and the notion of ‘cultural lag’ propounded by sociologist Charles Ogburn compellingly relevant today in understanding law as technology.
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