Regulating the Synthetic Society: Generative AI, Legal Questions, and Societal Challenges

This open access book provides an introduction to Generative Artificial Intelligence and four cutting-edge technologies that it enables - humanoid robots, deepfakes, augmented reality, and virtual reality. Experts predict that in five years’ time, more than 90 per cent of all digital content will be wholly or partially AI generated. In a synthetic society, it may no longer be possible to establish what is real and what is not. Although they are only in their relative infancy, these technologies can already produce content that is indistinguishable from authentic material. The impact of this new reality on democracy, the judicial system, the functioning of the press, as well as on personal relationships, might be unprecedented. The author describes the inner workings of each of these technologies and maps their positive uses in the fields of education, health and entertainment; conceptualises their negative uses for fraud, deception, exploitation and identity-theft; and explores their deeper effects on the post-truth society, the privatisation of the public sphere, and the loss of individual autonomy and societal trust. The book evaluates how the current European legal paradigm applies to these technologies, focussing on the right to privacy and data protection, intellectual property, freedom of expression, procedural law, tort law, consumer and competition law, and the regulation of AI. It discusses regulatory alternatives to solve existing regulatory gaps and shows that there are no easy answers.