A new article in Law360 highlights forthcoming scholarship by Professor Camilla Hrdy, associate professor at Rutgers Law School, examining how juries respond to the use of artificial intelligence in trade secrets disputes.
In their forthcoming article, to be published in the Stanford Journal of Law, Economics & Business, Hrdy and researchers from the University of Georgia and the University of Miami, used surveys to look for evidence of an “AI penalty” in trade secret cases. Their results suggest that future jurors might be more likely to assign liability and higher damages when defendants use AI rather than human actors to obtain competitively valuable information.The original paper can be accessed here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5610270
The Law360 article quotes Professor Hrdy as explaining that respondents’ reactions may reflect how “extremely open-ended” the definition of improper means is under trade secret law, while emphasizing that this does not mean “that AI use will always be seen as improper.” She also notes that because AI is “a really new technology,” courts and juries “may well frown upon” its use—at least for now.
The Law360 article can be accessed here: https://www.law360.com/articles/2443289/will-jurors-penalize-ai-study-examines-trade-secrets-impact