> With the rate that tech is advancing, it's becoming a problem how unfamiliar with it many in the justice system are.
People say that a lot. But yet you don't really hear doctors saying "how can a judge hear a case about a medical issue!" (look maybe some say that but not a lot).
The court has a solution for this -- they have expert witnesses and amicus briefs.
The problem is that technologists are allergic to politics (filing amicus briefs is basically politics as is lobbying), so they won't do what they need to do to make tech issues heard.
> But yet you don't really hear doctors saying "how can a judge hear a case about a medical issue!"
This actually is something that comes up reasonably often. In fact, when I was in law school, an entire week of Torts was spent on precisely this issue. It's not unique to technology, but the frequency in which it comes up, as well as the total number of people directly (by that, I mean their day to day life could materially change overnight) is much higher.
You aren't wrong about technologists and politics, though. I hadn't really thought about amicus briefs as a solution, thanks for pointing it out.
> But yet you don't really hear doctors saying "how can a judge hear a case about a medical issue!" (look maybe some say that but not a lot).
I hear this all the time. (I am a doctor's son.) Heck, you could probably get judges to say the same thing; they've completely abdicated on the question of whether something is or isn't legally-permissible medical care. The legal question, when you are sued for malpractice, is whether you conformed to "the local standard of care", which is different everywhere. If the local standard of care is obviously harmful to patients, that's not your fault. They should have been local to somewhere else. Did something bad happen to your patient by chance? If you didn't conform to the standard of care, you're probably at fault, regardless of whether it could have been related to something you did.
This situation obtains because judges are incapable of judging medical issues. Judges know it, doctors know it, and I know it, but I guess you didn't know it.
See also the discussion a while ago about how forensic science is basically just 100% fraudulent court testimony, but the courts are too reliant on that to give it up.
People say that a lot. But yet you don't really hear doctors saying "how can a judge hear a case about a medical issue!" (look maybe some say that but not a lot).
The court has a solution for this -- they have expert witnesses and amicus briefs.
The problem is that technologists are allergic to politics (filing amicus briefs is basically politics as is lobbying), so they won't do what they need to do to make tech issues heard.