The Sedona Conference Working Group 13 on Artificial Intelligence and the Law: Inaugural Meeting 2025

Date: 
Thursday, January 16, 2025 - 8:30am to Friday, January 17, 2025 - 3:00pm

Location:
The Camby Hotel
2401 East Camelback Road
Phoenix, AZ 85016

Welcome Reception:
Wednesday, January 15, 2025, 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.

Artificial Intelligence touches almost every aspect of the law. Several established Sedona Conference Working Groups are already tackling issues such as using AI in eDiscovery, AI and inventorship in patent law, and AI as a data privacy and cybersecurity risk. After two successful conferences on AI and the Law, The Sedona Conference will launch a new Working Group 13 with the dual mission of coordinating the AI-related activities of existing Working Groups and serving as an incubator to develop analyses and recommend principles and best practices addressing AI in other legal contexts.

We will meet in Phoenix, Arizona, in January, starting with a welcome reception on Wednesday evening, January 15, and ending with the adjournment at 3:00 p.m. on Friday, January 17. A detailed agenda with dialogue leaders will be issued in the next few days, but the planning committee has already narrowed the myriad AI and the Law topics down to these for dialogue during the meeting:

  • What Do We Mean By "AI" & Technology Primer
  • Regulation of AI - New and Existing Laws and Regulations Having a Major Impact on AI Use
  • Real-Life AI Use Cases: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
  • Measurement, Defensibility, and Compliance: Vetting, Validation, and Monitoring of AI Tools and Uses
  • AI Governance
  • Training of AI on Potentially Copyrighted Information
  • Patenting and Copyrighting AI-Generated Content
  • AI and the Courts (Including Evidentiary Issues) - Judges Panel
  • What the Future of AI Holds: Law and Technology
  • Where Does Working Group 13 Go from Here?
  • Working Group breakout sessions to focus WG13's future efforts

Available Hotels in the Area:
The room block at The Camby Hotel is now sold out. Below are several hotels in the area that are within a 15-minute walk to The Camby. Please note that The Sedona Conference has no contractual relationship with these hotels. We can neither provide a rate nor ensure the hotel's quality.

These are just a few in the area, and there may be others that better fit your needs.

To attend the meeting or join other Working Group 13 activities, you must either be a member of The Sedona Conference Working Group Series in good standing or an employee of a Working Group Series Sponsor. Judges, full-time government employees, and academics in accredited non-profit educational institutions may obtain a complimentary WGS membership and enjoy special consideration in meeting registration fees.

WG13 Inaugural Meeting Agenda

Time  Session  Panelists
(All times MST) Wednesday, January 15, 2025 (*=moderator)
5:30 — 7:30 p.m. Welcome Reception  
  Thursday, January 16, 2025  
7:30 — 8:30 a.m. Breakfast & sign-in  
8:30 — 9:00 a.m. Welcome and Announcements  
 
  • What does a TSC Working Group do and how?
  • What else is TSC currently doing in the AI space?
  
9:00 — 10:00 a.m. Session 1 -- What Do We Mean by "AI"  
 
  • Technology primer on AI technologies
  • What is included and excluded when we say "AI"
  
10:00 — 10:15 a.m. Morning Break  
10:15 — 11:15 a.m. Session 2 -- Regulation of AI  
 
  • What new laws and regulations have been proposed or implemented to address AI technologies
  • What existing laws and regulations might have a major impact on AI use?
 ,
11:15  — 12:15 p.m. Session 3 -- Real-Life AI Use Cases: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly  
 
  • For what legal and business functions are utilizing AI effectively?
  • Where has AI failed to deliver on its promise, and why?
  • Are there any functions for which AI is inappropriate?
  
12:15 — 1:15 p.m. Lunch (provided)  
1:15 — 2:15 p.m. Session 4 -- Measurement, Defensibility, and Compliance: Vetting, Validation, and Monitoring of AI Tools and Uses  
 
  • Laws, regulations, and business cases for AI are all based on assessments of its fitness for purpose (validity and reliability). But can we agree on how to make those assessments?
  • AI business cases are fine-tuned to deliver optimal decisions and outcomes, but AI-regulating laws are focused on compliance with legal standards. As various jurisdictions begin requiring AI impact assessments, bias audits, and other AI validations, can we agree on the best way forward?
   
2:15 — 3:15 p.m. Session 5 -- AI Governance  
 
  • The introduction of AI into an enterprise, and GenAI in particular, raises many questions about information collection, retention, stewardship, access, and disposal that are the bedrock of Information Governance policies and procedures. How does Information Governance need to be expanded to incorporate AI?
  
3:15 — 3:30 p.m. Afternoon Break  
3:30 — 4:30 p.m. Session 6 -- IP Part 1: Training of AI on Potentially Copyrighted Information  
 
  • GenAI requires massive amounts of data for training, and the hightest quality data. Books, edited articles, published works of art, and music - are generally protected by copyright. Is ingestion of such data a violation of copyright, "fair use," or something else entirely? Should we compensate creators for access to their work, and if so, how might we do that?
  
4:30 — 5:30 p.m. Session 7 -- IP Part 2: Patenting and Copyrighting of AI-Genereated Content  
 
  • Currently, the Copyright Office will decline to protect any work created by AI. The Patent Office requires "reasonable disclosure" of the role of AI in developing the invention. Is either approach appropriate, or do we need entirely new concepts of "invention" and "creation" that account for the future pervasiveness of AI in human creations?
  
5:30 — 7:30 p.m. Reception (guests invited)  
  Friday, January 17, 2025  
7:30 — 8:30 a.m. Breakfast & sign-in  
8:30 — 9:45 a.m. Session 8 -- AI and the Courts (Including Evidentiary Issues) - Judges Panel
 

 

  • Can AI help relieve overburdened courts?
  • Can AI assist self-represented litigants?
  • Should judges be using GenAI and if so, for what tasks?
  • How can judges and juries spot AI-generated evidence?
  
9:45 — 10:45 a.m. Session 9 -- What the Future of AI Holds: Law and Technology  
 
  • What is next on the horizon for AI?
  • Where can advances in AI improve the legal system?
  • What are the potential legal dangers that these advances might present?
  
10:45 — 11:00 a.m. Morning Break  
11:00 — 12:00 p.m. Session 10 -- Where does Working Group 13 Go from Here  
 
  • Can we identify tipping point legal issues raised by AI that would benefit from further analysis and guidance for courts and lawmakers?
  • Are there issues for which we might reach broad agreement on principles or guidelines for resolution?
  • Given limited volunteer resources and much landscape to cover, where can The Sedona Conference get the biggeset bank for its buck?
  
12:00 — 12:30 p.m. Lunch (grab-and-go - take to Breakout Room)  
12:30 — 1:30 p.m. Breakout 1  
 
  • Topic(s) to be determined.
  
1:30 — 1:45 p.m. Afternoon Break  
1:45 — 2:45 p.m. Breakout 2  
 
  • Topic(s) to be determined.
  
2:45 — 3:00 p.m. Closing Remarks and Adjournment