Zachary Catanzaro (St. Thomas University) has posted ALGORITHMIC DEAD HANDS on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Can we transcend death? By combining developments in large language models with surveillance capitalism's robust and invasive data collection and scraping techniques, A.I. systems can permit testators to exercise unprecedented levels of dead hand control over their property (and heirs) through a series of conditional property devisements. If the system detects deviant behavior, programmed conditions stand ready to curtail property rights. This promises an alluring form of digital immortality-an algorithmic 'dead hand' which, if left unrestrained, threatens creation of a novel form of perpetuities.
If left unaddressed, these new technologies risk new modes of algorithmic mortmains and a digitized techno-feudal Necrocracy characterized by inalienable property, drastic wealth consolidation, and perpetual control over the living by the dead. While recent reforms have tempered some of the common law's traditional hostility toward dead hand control, these efforts did not envision technologically embodied intentionality persisting after death. Algorithmic dead hands corrupt the autonomy of the living and destroy the alienability of property. They lead us toward the concentration of land and wealth into the hands of indifferent and uncaring machines. Modern efforts to curtail or abolish the strict formalism of the rule against perpetuities and other restrictions on dead hand control must be reconsidered. After all, why should the living be left to suffer the will of the dead?
Fascinating and recommended.
