276.14S sec. 001 - The Law and Governance of Artificial Intelligence (Summer 2025)
Instructor: Colleen Chien (view instructor's teaching evaluations - degree students only)
Instructor: David Evan Harris
View all teaching evaluations for this course - degree students only
Units: 3
Grading Designation: Graded
Mode of Instruction: In-Person
Meeting:
MTuWThF 2:00 PM - 4:35 PM
Location: Law 140
From June 03, 2025
To June 24, 2025
Class Number: Click to show Class Number
Enrollment info:
Enrolled: 31
Waitlisted: 0
Enroll Limit: 50
As of: 04/03 07:14 PM
Artificial intelligence technologies including generative and large language models, neural networks, and robotics are augmenting and replacing humans in a growing number of human endeavors including content creation, driving, policing, and waging war. In this course, students will gain fluency with AI technologies and examine the ways in which law and policy are being developed and applied to minimize the harms (e.g. in the form of bias, privacy-, inequality, and security-related harms) and maximize the benefits (e.g. in the form of reduced costs, greater access, and greater personalization) offered by AI. Examining a variety of law and governance tools, including court adjudication, legislation, regulatory frameworks, industry standards, and best practices, this course will dive deeply into the intersections of AI and human rights, civil liberties, privacy, intellectual property, consumer protection, employment, and other laws. The class will draw upon course materials co-curated by lawyers advising firms on AI matters, as well as simulations and exercises that will be used to hone skills of analysis and expression and build substantive knowledge. One focus of the class will be on how AI is transforming the practice of law, and the opportunities offered by technologies of automation and artificial intelligence to ameliorate or exacerbate existing inequalities in the practice of law, including the access to justice gap.
Colleen Chien is Professor of Law at the Berkeley Law School where she teaches and conducts empirical research on intellectual property, innovation, artificial intelligence, and the criminal justice system and co-directs the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology and serves as Faculty advisor to the Berkeley Criminal Law & Justice Center. Chien is among the top 20-cited intellectual property and cyberlaw scholars in the US, and her work has been published in leading academic journals, reported on in the mainstream media, and been the subject of testimony she has provided before Congressional subcommittees and executive and state agencies. From 2013-2015, Chien served in the Obama White House as a Senior Advisor, Intellectual Property and Innovation; she also served on the Biden-Harris Transition team and in the Department of Commerce. Chien is known for her in-depth empirical studies of patent litigation, patent-assertion entities (PAEs) (a term that she coined), the secondary market for patents, and, in the criminal justice realm, on the “second chance” gap between those eligible for and receiving relief from the criminal justice system. She founded and directs two grant-funded research initiatives: the Innovator Diversity Pilots Initiative (diversitypilots.org), which develops rigorous evidence to boost inclusion in innovation, and the Paper Prisons Initiative (paperprisons.org), which conducts research to address and advance economic and racial justice through empirical study of the second chance gap in expungement, driver’s license suspension policies, and the California Racial Justice Act. Chien is a graduate of Stanford (Engineering) and Berkeley Law School and lives in Oakland with her husband and their two sons.
David Evan Harris is a Chancellor’s Public Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley and faculty member at the Haas School of Business. He teaches courses including AI Ethics for Leaders; Social Movements & Social Media; Civic Technology; and Scenario Planning. He has advised the White House, US Congress, European Union, United Nations, NATO, and California Legislature about tech policy. His writings and commentary have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, CNN, BBC, AP, Guardian, Bloomberg, and The Atlantic, among others. He was named to Business Insider’s AI 100 list in 2023. Harris also advises numerous organizations working on technology policy. He is a Senior Policy Advisor at the California Initiative for Technology and Democracy (CITED); Senior Advisor, AI & Elections at the Brennan Center for Justice; Senior Research Fellow at the International Computer Science Institute; and Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. He previously worked as a Research Manager at Meta (formerly Facebook) on the Responsible AI and Civic Integrity teams. In his role at Meta, Harris led a team of quantitative and qualitative researchers focused on AI fairness, governance, and accountability.
Exam Notes: (F) In-class Final Exam
(Subject to change by faculty member only through the first two weeks of instruction)
Course Category: AI Law and Regulation
This course is listed in the following sub-categories:
Intellectual Property and Technology Law
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