arXiv subjects

Burkhard Schafer

Publications and source records attributed to Burkhard Schafer.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Cross-Border Legal Adaptation of Autonomous Vehicle Design based on Logic and Non-monotonic Reasoning

This paper focuses on the legal compliance challenges of autonomous vehicles in a transnational context. We choose the perspective of designers and try to provide supporting legal reasoning in the design process. Based on argumentation theory, we introduce a logic to represent the basic properties of argument-based practical (normative) reasoning, combined with partial order sets of natural numbers to express priority. Finally, through case analysis of legal texts, we show how the reasoning system we provide can help designers to adapt their design solutions more flexibly in the cross-border application of autonomous vehicles and to more easily understand the legal implications of their decisions.

cs.AI↗

arXiv2023

Bridging the Transparency Gap: What Can Explainable AI Learn From the AI Act?

The European Union has proposed the Artificial Intelligence Act which introduces detailed requirements of transparency for AI systems. Many of these requirements can be addressed by the field of explainable AI (XAI), however, there is a fundamental difference between XAI and the Act regarding what transparency is. The Act views transparency as a means that supports wider values, such as accountability, human rights, and sustainable innovation. In contrast, XAI views transparency narrowly as an end in itself, focusing on explaining complex algorithmic properties without considering the socio-technical context. We call this difference the ``transparency gap''. Failing to address the transparency gap, XAI risks leaving a range of transparency issues unaddressed. To begin to bridge this gap, we overview and clarify the terminology of how XAI and European regulation -- the Act and the related General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) -- view basic definitions of transparency. By comparing the disparate views of XAI and regulation, we arrive at four axes where practical work could bridge the transparency gap: defining the scope of transparency, clarifying the legal status of XAI, addressing issues with conformity assessment, and building explainability for datasets.

cs.AI↗

arXiv2022

The Chaotic State of UK Drone Regulation

In December 2020 the law for drone pilots and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) use went into a transition phase in preparation for new EU international UAV regulation. That EU regulation comes into full effect as the transition periods defined in the United Kingdom's Civil Aviation Authority Air Policy CAP722 expire during December 2022 (CAA, 2020). However, international homologation regulation will not address the patchwork of inconsistent drone use regulations that exist in the United Kingdom from the layering of local and subordinate authority byelaws over UK aviation law. We provide an extensive review of local authority regulation of drone use on public open and green spaces, finding that many local authorities are unaware of the issues being created through: (i) inappropriately couched or poorly framed byelaws; (ii) multiple byelaws covering the same area by virtue of overlapping jurisdictions; or (iii) the lack readily identifiable policies for drone use on public land. Overregulation, inconsistent regulation and regulatory disharmony are causing confusion for recreational drone enthusiasts such that it is never clear which public or crown-owned open and green spaces they are allowed to, or prohibited from, flying. While the government and local authorities might like them to, drones are not going away. Therefore, we conclude, the easiest way to ensure citizens stay within the bounds of drone law that is intended to ensure public safety, is to make that law comprehensible, consistent and easy to comply with.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2022

Revealing Cumulative Risks in Online Personal Information: A Data Narrative Study

When pieces from an individual's personal information available online are connected over time and across multiple platforms, this more complete digital trace can give unintended insights into their life and opinions. In a data narrative interview study with 26 currently employed participants, we examined risks and harms to individuals and employers when others joined the dots between their online information. We discuss the themes of visibility and self-disclosure, unintentional information leakage and digital privacy literacies constructed from our analysis. We contribute insights not only into people's difficulties in recalling and conceptualising their digital traces but of subsequently envisioning how their online information may be combined, or (re)identified across their traces and address a current gap in research by showing that awareness is lacking around the potential for personal information to be correlated by and made coherent to/by others, posing risks to individuals, employers, and even the state. We touch on inequalities of privacy, freedom and legitimacy that exist for different groups with regard to what they make (or feel compelled to make) available online and we contribute to current methodological work on the use of sketching to support visual sense making in data narrative interviews. We conclude by discussing the need for interventions that support personal reflection on the potential visibility of combined digital traces to spotlight hidden vulnerabilities, and promote more proactive action about what is shared and not shared online.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2022

The Self-Driving Car: Crossroads at the Bleeding Edge of Artificial Intelligence and Law

Artificial intelligence (AI) features are increasingly being embedded in cars and are central to the operation of self-driving cars (SDC). There is little or no effort expended towards understanding and assessing the broad legal and regulatory impact of the decisions made by AI in cars. A comprehensive literature review was conducted to determine the perceived barriers, benefits and facilitating factors of SDC in order to help us understand the suitability and limitations of existing and proposed law and regulation. (1) existing and proposed laws are largely based on claimed benefits of SDV that are still mostly speculative and untested; (2) while publicly presented as issues of assigning blame and identifying who pays where the SDC is involved in an accident, the barriers broadly intersect with almost every area of society, laws and regulations; and (3) new law and regulation are most frequently identified as the primary factor for enabling SDC. Research on assessing the impact of AI in SDC needs to be broadened beyond negligence and liability to encompass barriers, benefits and facilitating factors identified in this paper. Results of this paper are significant in that they point to the need for deeper comprehension of the broad impact of all existing law and regulations on the introduction of SDC technology, with a focus on identifying only those areas truly requiring ongoing legislative attention.

cs.AI↗