Inflection Points in Technology Law

Abstract

In this introduction to volume 16 of the Ohio State Technology Law Journal, we consider the current state of cyberlaw at the quarter-century mark, and its interactions with other areas of the law.

This issue opens with two distinguished lectures by Mary Anne Franks and James Grimmelmann, who offer their thoughts on the current and future challenges in the law of cyberspace. The latter part of this issue consists of nine essays authored by participants in the Journal’s annual symposium, titled “Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Tax Law and Policy.” This issue is the first published symposium in the U.S. to ask how automation and artificial intelligence might disrupt tax law.

We believe that these essays demonstrate that cyberlaw has moved, and is likely to continue to move, from the outskirts to the center of the law. The gravitational weight of discourse has shifted from whether cyberlaw can shed peripheral insight on the law, to whether the law as a whole is properly focused on the most salient aspects of a society that now meets, works, and resides substantially online.

Keywords: Cyberlaw, Internet, Technology, Tax, Artificial Intelligence

JEL Classification: O30, O33, O38, K34, K00