A Tale of Two Automated States

Abstract

In his  book, which partially shares its title with this edited collection (The Automated State: Computer Systems as a New Force in Society),  Robert McBride anticipated that public authorities would be able to do 'more' thanks to the possibility of storing more detailed data combined with the increasing capacity of machines to process that data. He conjectured that this would create new legal problems. Fast forward half a century and the Automated State may (really) be on the brink of happening. AI can essentially change the state and the way it operatesnote the 'essentially'.Public authorities, employing (or assisted by) machines to a large scale, could do more. What this 'more' is, is a matter of discussion,  but, broadly speaking, it can mean two ideas: (i) doing things that humans could do, but more efficiently or to a larger scale; or (ii) doing things that could not be done before, at all or at a reasonable cost.  Therefore, the rules that regulate the action of public authorities need to be adapted. This chapter deals with the normative question of the type of regulatory reform that we should aim for.It can be anticipated that changes within the immediate horizonthree to five yearswill be marginal and starting at the points of least resistance, that is, in tasks