here this is incredible honor and great
pleasure to be talking to everyone here
today so the title of my speech is do
robots app free speech and you may be
wondering what does either of your law
student know about robots let alone code
or anything like that it’s been well
known that most law students know
nothing about code and I’d say okay
maybe that’s generally true um Steph
league in my case as well um but the
story of word of this sort of came from
was that back in december i had the
opportunity to go see conference in
seven where a where Aaron Pettigrew
gawker gave us short speech short
presentation on the use of new
technologies to micro target messages to
individuals in the course of a campaign
and one of these your technologies is
boss and that piqued my interest they
said you know it may be what I’m going
to do is I’m going to research this and
so this presentation is the result of
this research which is still ongoing but
it’s kind of Justin shared with you
results we’ve seen so far so um I’ll
admit the title is votes Ingenuus
because I’m not really talking about
robots like this little guy i’m also not
talking about things like Siri or
Amazon’s Alexa all those I mean else is
my department when I’m talking about our
automated social media accounts AK this
stuff so like in popcorn and receipt
sort of your garden-variety Twitter bot
which has some algorithm where you know
they’re basically posting different
peoples Twitter handles this line did
you know that Facebook is disabling
accounts of activists um not true and
then I’m also below 28 weeks which if
you haven’t heard of was a Microsoft
experiment to create artisan an
artificial intelligence teenage girl on
Twitter um it didn’t end well it lasted
about 24 hours and then rhythmic
catastrophe if you want to know more
just ask me in human
about that so what are the uses of these
box so generally speaking de as
programmers and the platforms um become
more sophisticated and AI becomes more
robust the uses of bots for liberation
increases and so I link sure to bump
into two categories there’s benign uses
and there’s malicious pieces so but nine
uses can include something like having a
bog on Twitter that gives you a weather
update we’re automatically post a score
from recent or you meant that healing
work otherwise have to be manually um
there’s a reddit box that go around and
look to see if any links in your post
broken and there is one finds is just
going to post under you and say hey by
the way buddy here your link is broken
you may want to check that those are
good uses there’s also some uses of us
to actually engage people when they use
things like or racial slurs so there’s
one guy who published the results in the
journal club a behavior where you found
that and he had a bot that actually when
I’m certain that honest people or
engaged and constructive feedback when
they used to certain racial slur that
person that they parted was far less
likely to use that score in the future
which is really cool in my opinion that
that’s a good use however um there’s
also facts malicious so these can
include things as sort of entry level
bad is like retweeting stuff who’s you
know boosting how many likes of those or
downloads on certain posts that you see
generally speaking making it seem like
certain posts or ideas are more popular
or less popular than they actually are
we’re still there’s also the ability for
these for these boss to engage big
speech and for spread this information
or lives or conspiracy theories and if
you think this is all sort of abstract
is not there’s real consequences to us
and just to sort of illustrate that we
can look at the recent of the recent
incident in DC where a gunman showed up
at a pizzeria because he had read online
that in the beast of this pizzeria was a
secure paedophilia like rain run by
Hillary
john podesta um so he read this on lock
and the thing was it started as some
sort of hoax or a joke or something you
need to read it or fortunate got picked
up on Twitter but according to Professor
long are started professor I’ll write
home to pursue belong he found that it
turns out that most of the accounts that
we’re talking about this weren’t
actually people it was us and so it
seemed like there was this groundswell
of common knowledge I’ve all my gosh
there’s this this pedophilia ring would
really that wasn’t the truth and it led
to very serious consequences that said
there’s again there’s not just religious
or the nine muses there’s also some sort
of in the middle like commercial uses
applause so lots of easy sell things and
if they can sell products they can also
sell people and ideas and that leads us
to 2016 election so here we have some
research from the University of Oxford
which looked at tweets during the
presidential campaign in here is it the
general sort of sort of sense of what
the tweets are going on during the run
to the debate the black is just general
angel hashtags red was Pro trunk we was
proclaimed and they analyzed it with
machine learning detect which accounts
were fielder which ones were fake for
BOTS I’m in turns out that this green
line which is the number of bots making
these tweets is about twenty percent of
all the traffic now that’s that’s that’s
a fair amount and the problem is dead
unassuming news outlets like CNN more
necessarily we’re discerning between
they would just will get topics and
we’re trending and it would then we
amplify a message that was already being
amplified by the use of these plots and
so you may step back and say welcome
back what’s the big you you know like
okay so there’s my boss like who cares
they’re just throwing around garbage we
can all tell the difference between
ivana even right right turns out it’s a
lot a lot more difficult so there was
one experiment 2014 we found that
seventy percent lots went undetected by
Twitter there’s another study from the
University of Reading where during an
actual Alan Turing test
we’re sort of flying tank and look into
tech bots they only got it right seventy
percent of time and got along pretty
time these are people who are like
actively looking for it my hunch is that
your average user of the internet is not
not discerning and that’s not because of
mrs. so stupid it’s just because um
maybe there’s a difference in tech lon
savviness for education levels and also
just in general these bots are getting
really sophisticated really quickly in
fact we’re kind of like terminators um
they like have a face they have a name
of a profile picture if fabricated geo
locations and pending on how
sophisticated programmer as we move you
made it they can really actually engage
with you pretty easily on like an a
question or a top or a dialogue so if
you’re like me and you care about
whether or not the internet is still in
public domain for public discourse
little discourse the exchange of ideas
exchange of truth for people that
actually debate persuade each other it
should be a little concerning certainly
Trump campaign was the only campaign
that did this intended to but the idea
that there’s sort of these armies of
matza they’re sort of polluting our our
marketplace of ideas it is alarming and
at least a very sort of simple inside
which is that as more and more political
discourse news online internet all so
just as an informal poll I just want
people to raise their hands how many of
you in the last like three months got
into a debate on facebook or reddit or
something I thought mumble something
didn’t know if you okay for those who
raise your hand how many be done that
with equal or more frequency in real
life okay so service serous same so
maybe you guys aren’t miss Layton
representative sample just because maybe
you guys are more plugged in or activate
gauge especially if you’re coming to
attack on politics end but my mic that
would be that most people are less
having fewer in person talks and more
online class and so this makes us ask
well what should we do about their
three things so first of all we could
talk about it um the very fact that I
someone who was working on my campaign
this fall and i think is relatively
plugged into her internet trends didn’t
know about this until about like two
months ago certainly a month after
election shows that auslly women are the
radar this year but the more we talk
better the more be certain moment lure
people to those are the presents and
have a function maybe people will be a
little bit more discerning about what
they see and what they read on the
internet so that’s step one step two is
their proposed to be technical solutions
and so platforms of what i call it front
and make tiny access to api is to sort
of reduce the number boss they actually
want another platform or try to
eliminate them all together with old
technology old relative sense technology
length captures on the back end if they
do want some box on their black arm like
Twitter mike still want some good box
and they can use advances additional
learning to try to detect which box are
good with robes are bad which one of
violating terms of service and get rid
of that once enjoyed one spouse but this
leads to sort of a another interesting
scenario which is well if that’s the
case are we just bleeding ourselves to a
sort of cyber arms race where it’s going
to be the pots versus the ante pots um
you know and it’s just going to go on
and on and on is there any room where we
can maybe get Congress or the law help
us on our side and try to prevent this
from get this under control and this is
a really interesting question and this
is where or off whereas I can’t miss
Elise be fun the technical side of
things I can talk to you about what
limitations that might be move along and
so before I answer this question let me
just first ensure that this is really
hypothetical because I mean certainly
the law lacks the high technology
generally speaking but on top of that
we’re living the political climate right
now where it’s very hard to get anything
done it’s very unlikely Congress who’s
going to want to have to take the take
on this issue they don’t really have a
full power at the time but if we were
nonetheless is your task all right well
how would you do it if we could do it
what would be clear what would be the
optimist well the first obstacle is
about 200 years old and goes like
it says Congress shall make no law
abridging the freedom of speech in
pertinent part that’s the free speech
Clause of the First Amendment and you
may say look Byron you have your answer
oh I’m just going to try to regulate the
use of these pots no not sorry First
Amendment that’s it you know it’s like
if the programmer has the right to free
speech doesn’t bought 28 hey maybe not
it’s actually a little more complicated
and answer this it’s worth taking a step
back and analyzing the levels of speech
that actually occurred within the robot
or the bottom the first is the code that
goes into the body style and then the
second is whatever the body is saying
and so because the second level a little
bit easier to digest we’re going to
start with that first so generally
speaking and the First Amendment
whatever a box says is usually protected
police’s is productive anything you or I
might say so just as for example if i
make i use fighting words or threaten
you or I engage in speech that is likely
to incite imminent violence those things
weren’t protected under the First
Amendment just as much as it would be if
I fed it online for a bot or I said it
to one of you right now person but but
that’s that said there’s there’s another
level speech because what if we had
Congress by law said fine you can have
your box say whatever you want just say
that the published just make sure the
box says it’s a bot it just reveals its
true identity what about that and that
also might have problems and to do that
if you look at the cover so the code
itself is considered a form of speech at
least under some circuit so there’s one
case full of universities versus
horribly there’s no case of United
States Bernstein where the second line
service respectively have held that
phone is a form of speech just because
it’s in sign poles most of us are many
of us doesn’t mean that it’s not a
speech cognizable under the first clinic
however with the idea that age speech
dismissal II mean that it’s necessarily
going to be
and we run into something called a
compelled speech doctrine which may true
for a wrinkle to this and illustrate
we’re going to look at apple Apple’s
recent her bubbles so they call it with
the FBI so last year the FBI one hack
into the iphone of the San Bernardino
shooter and Apple I said we went to
apple into apple why does some code to
let into the Python and apples like we
politely client I’m so happy I was like
all right we’re going to go to the poor
and make you write this code and I was
like weep lightly fine and so a legal
debate legal incident came before and
these an apple Rogan emotion we get to
the order saying look this is compelled
speech you’re making us speak and it’s
offensive to our poor friend envy you
may be thinking now who what is this was
there any merit to this very milk what
is this compelled speech doctrine and
the answer that actually was all the way
back to nineteen forty-three in a case
called West West Virginia Board of
Education versus Barnett where the court
will have very landmark case that the
government can’t tell you to express the
opinion or believe that you don’t
actually believe it and that’s referring
to political opinions it was the case of
a kid didn’t want to recite the Pledge
of Allegiance so FYI done you have
precise budget we do to don’t want to UM
on that but the Apple used this argument
to say we find writing this code
professor so the problem with the Apple
FBI debate was never got resolved FBI
found a workaround the poor poor case
one way we can moon so that we’re never
actually answered whether or not the be
anything to whether that to the extent
that this and whether or not this
counted as compelling speech so here’s
how is it the way I see it is that code
is speech yes but code is a set of
instructions to machine and the bot is
separate from the coat in fact the bomb
is worth an emergent property of not
just the code that
used to provide it but also the code of
the platform’s it used to interact with
interfaces with the wires and the cables
and servers that create and comprise the
internet and then ultimately you and
your browser where you’re looking at
that bottom reading what it says so the
code and the bond are actually sort of
different and so looking at what the bog
is used for and the intent behind it I
think allows us to make a relatively
relatively colorful distinction so I
would say that it’s probably
unconstitutional for a poor a precaution
passed a law that says if you make a pot
of your own personal use for you to that
insert code into that box say it is a
month to reveal itself as a pop why be
hey this is your form of three stages
your form of hacktivism this your web
making part so your bot if you want to
do that you don’t have to reveal that
it’s a bottle but if you’re selling
balls like the kinds of we’re sold to
the Clinton and Trump campaigns this
glass election that’s the story because
they’re you’re not engaging so much of
speech as you are in creating a product
you’re creating an empty signifier that
someone else is going to use and use to
proliferate their message and that
respect government can compel speech so
we might get around this compelled
speech doctrine in the same way that the
FDA is able to make food manufacturers
put warning labels on the food you eat
so no process likes for me that way they
have to study how much sugar in visit
and maybe Kellogg thinks that really
offensive but too bad they still have to
do it so that might be one answer at how
we could solve this riddle of when we do
with thought can we have it always
reveal themselves as a lot that when
you’re going to hear that you know oh
this is a lot this is the real person
the other way to conceptualize it is
that the bot isn’t so much speech act as
it is like a billboard it’s a medium and
the Constitution allows us to regulate
media with content neutral time and
place restrictions so a law saying that
billboards have to be 20 micro defeat is
totally constitutional similarly a law
that says a billboard has to have a
little sign over here that says this is
a billboard is redundant but still
constitutional and so in theory we could
have
we could have this exactly work and
there’s some precedents of that there’s
a court case motor be as you see in the
Ninth Circuit where they upheld
Congress’s attempt to regulate robo
calls and they said regardless of a robo
call is for a commercial or political
purpose it’s a time manner in place
restriction and its content neutral so
that’s okay so there might be an analogy
there it’s plausible about not probable
but it’s plausible um but but with that
I sort of one is conclude with a sort of
open questions and say okay even if it’s
legal to give this to do this regulation
should we do it and here are three very
well-known justices homes Brandeis and
Harlan can be just as a theory free
speech when we should regulate it and
why and they all have answers to this
however what I think is sort of a large
web site from las is that you know the
technology of the future is really going
to stretch the wisdom of the past and so
welcome to brave new world of box thank
you [Applause]