In other words, we&#x27;d use an always-connected device (like a phone or a watch) to help us comply with micro-directives. I can totally see some folks rebelling against that. There&#x27;s already fear related to strong AIs.<p>On the other hand, this is _exactly_ the same class of problems Google and other self-driving car makers face when it comes to questions of ethics and morality. There were several recent articles on HN about that. The question posed was: should your self-driving car swerve to avoid those kids who just got off the school bus, sacrificing you and the passengers?<p>That leads to an implicit question: should Google and other engineers be responsible for writing such algorithms?<p>What these two law professors are proposing gives a different option. Change the way policy is made. Such micro-directives (which requires a computing device to execute) would include the behavior of self-driving cars as a general case, rather than a special case. The paper might talk about getting the benefits of rules and standards without the cost, but we&#x27;re really talking about making our legislation legible for machines to follow.<p>On an even bigger scale: how do micro-directives change how we conceive of and think of a democracy or a republic? Are policy makers sufficiently versed in engineering to reason through the impact of the laws? But then again, the idea was to use Big Data methods to collect that. Does that require specialists to design and deploy that system? Wasn&#x27;t the original idea behind the American form of democracy, a literate voting public that can reason and discuss the impact of policy and make informed votes for those that represent them? Are Big Data methods more accurate representation of the will of the people? Or less?<p>Now, I&#x27;ve only read the first few pages, but I kinda wonder know if the paper will mention any this (and in particular the self-driving car example). Gonna have something to talk with my law geek buddies for a while.