Is The Law Becoming Obsolete?

By: J. McManus

Historically, contracts, legislation, and regulation have been made to support rights and obligations between companies, people, and the government throughout the years in a way that made sense at the time. However, it is possible to argue that the rapid evolution of society and technology in the world we live today is quickly making current regulation obsolete.  
 
Currently we have people working in data, call, and service delivery centers all over the world, providing their services for companies in Brazil, whereas historically people had worked in the company’s premises. This impacts Brazilian jobs, taxes and overall Brazilian economic growth given that the Brazilian taxes and tariffs are not fully applied to the people working overseas in these circumstances.
 
Apps like Uber have swiftly become the norm and substitute for regular taxi services despite not following the regulation applicable to taxis and taxi drivers. Requirements made to ensure the safety of citizens such as having a taxi license (alvará) and having a location for the taxi rank contributes to maintaining order in society which is simply ignored by many modern-day transportation apps. A more recent instance of this occurrence is the 99 app launching a moto-taxi service in São Paulo despite the mayor having prohibited it – the blatant disregard for security regulations protecting passenger’s welfare is indicative in applicability to current legislation. 


New A.I. services also propose an ethical conundrum to its user because it is based on the basic concept of plagiarism and paraphrasing. It will take people’s work from the data given or available online and might modify it slightly to conform to the prompt. However, the basic information and knowledge transmitted ultimately belongs to someone else and is passed off as the A.I.’s work. 
 
Legislation cannot keep up with evolution. Laws must change to fit into the context of the modern world, otherwise they cannot expect to be followed or to be effective. Major technological advancements call for major changes in the way regulations are created and applied, especially in a world where such significant tools like artificial intelligence are so quickly shared across the globe.