DESCRIPTION
7th Annual BTLJ-BCLT Fall Race & Technology Symposium: Being Human in the Age of AI
Panel 1: The Last Private Place: Neural Data, Digital Addiction, and the Law of Cognitive Liberty
Program Information | Agenda | Resources | Speaker Bio(s) & Contact Info
Panel Description:
As AI and neurotechnology move ever closer to the mind, this panel asks what it means for the law to protect mental privacy, attention, and cognition. Panelists examine neural-data statutes, addictive product design, and AI companion chatbots through privacy law, consumer-protection authority, and product liability. The central question: when does personalization shade into manipulation, and can existing law protect the user’s inner life?
Speakers
Matthew Lawrence, Emory University Law School
Tracy Shapiro, Wilson Sonsini
Francis Shen, Minnesota Law School
Moderator
Vincent Joralemon, Life Sciences & Competition Center, BCLT, UC Berkeley Law
Symposium Description:
Being Human in the Age of AI, a symposium exploring how artificial intelligence is reshaping the law’s most basic assumptions about the human person — from the privacy of the mind to the boundaries of legal responsibility. Across four panels, we traced an arc from the innermost self outward: how neurotechnology and algorithmic design test the limits of cognitive liberty; how deepfakes and biometric systems unsettle the law of identity; how automated decision-making challenges due process and the right to be heard; and how courts and legislatures are struggling to define what AI fundamentally is. Attendees heard from leading scholars, technologists, and practitioners grappling with these questions in real time, as courts issue rulings, states pass conflicting statutes, and AI companies themselves debate the moral status of the systems they build.