Robert Heverly

Background

About Robert Heverly

I write and think about law, technology and society. Cyborg technology is already here; how should and will law address us when we’re cyborgs? Artificial Intelligence poses frightening questions, but development continues apace. How will law address the challenges of AI? Drone technology is rapidly being deployed and new commercial applications are being developed almost daily. How should law be included not only in the national airspace but also in our society as a whole? Robots have been around for many years, but recent developments in computing and automation have expanded both their capabilities and the challenges they create. What role does law have in addressing these cultural, economic and technological changes? These topics are my passion, and I read, think, write and speak about these topics as much as I can, from formal scholarly publications to hacker’s conference presentations to individual conversations to working groups of people interested in and affected by technology’s most pressing developments. My background, education and past experience have driven my continuing interest in these topics. I was with the Government Law Center in the 1990s (after graduating from Albany Law School with a J.D. degree), where I delved into the then “new” Internet in the context of government and law. I moved to the Information Society Project at Yale Law School in the early (following my graduation from Yale with an LL.M.), and looked at the interaction of private ownership with common use. I spent time in the UK (teaching and directing the LL.M. in Law, Information & Technology at the University of East Anglia) and then came back in the U.S.(first at Michigan State University College of Law before moving to and staying at Albany Law School), and have been looking at how technological developments challenge law, culture, and social order (and how law should respond to those challenges). These issues around technology and law: is my passion.