Algorithmic Destruction, Tiffany Li, Assistant Professor of Law, University of New Hampshire School of Law

Contemporary privacy law does not go far enough to protect our privacy interests, particularly where artificial intelligence and machine learning are concerned. While many have written on problems of algorithmic bias and data deletion, this talk introduces the novel concept of the “algorithmic shadow” and explains the new privacy remedy of “algorithmic destruction,” also known as algorithmic disgorgement or (relatedly) machine unlearning.

The algorithmic shadow describes the harms related to the persistent imprint of training data that has been fed into a machine learning model and used to refine that machine learning system. This shadow persists even if data is deleted from the initial training data set, which means privacy rights like data deletion do not solve for the new class of privacy harms that arise from machine learning. Algorithmic destruction (deletion of models or algorithms trained on misbegotten data) has emerged as an alternative, or perhaps supplementary remedy and regulatory enforcement tool to address these new harms.

No prior technical understanding is necessary to attend this talk. You will learn everything you need to know about AI and ML, within the hour.*

 *Results not guaranteed

Tiffany Li is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of New Hampshire School of Law. She is also an Affiliated Fellow at the Yale Law School Information Society Project. Li is an expert on privacy, artificial intelligence, and technology platform governance. She regularly appears as a legal commentator in national and global news outlets, and she has written for popular publications including the Washington Post, the Atlantic, and Slate, as well as a recurring column on technology and privacy for MSNBC. Her academic scholarship has appeared in the SMU Law Review, American University Law Review, Loyola University Chicago Law Journal, and more. Li previously taught for the BU/MIT Technology Law Clinic at the Boston University School of Law and has held past affiliations with Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy and U.C. Berkeley’s Center for Technology, Society and Policy. Prior to academia, she gained experience in law and policy at leading technology organizations including the Wikimedia Foundation, General Assembly, Inc., and Ask.com. Li is a licensed attorney and has CIPP/US, CIPP/E, CIPT, CIPM, and FIP certifications from the International Association of Privacy Professionals. She has a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, where she was a Global Law Scholar, and a B.A. in English from University of California, Los Angeles, where she was a Norma J. Ehrlich Scholar. She is currently completing an MSt in AI Ethics and Society at the University of Cambridge.