DESCRIPTION
7th Annual BTLJ-BCLT Fall Race & Technology Symposium: Being Human in the Age of AI
Panel 3: The Black Box on Trial: Algorithmic Decisions, Due Process, and the Right to Contest
Program Information | Agenda | Resources | Speaker Bio(s) & Contact Info
Panel Description:
Algorithms now sit inside decisions that once guaranteed a hearing — bail, parole, benefits, medical coverage — often without one. This panel traces the fight over trade-secret protections shielding algorithmic decision-making and the limits of current AI audit tooling. Panelists debate whether courts, auditors, or legislatures are best positioned to deliver a meaningful “right to contest” an automated decision.
Speakers
Sean Quinn, Cooley
Rebecca Wexler, Columbia Law School
Inioluwa Deborah Raji, UC Berkeley
Moderator
Colleen Chien, 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.