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The article analyses the consequences and challenges of new technologies' application to contracts. The change occurring in the application of AI and, broadly, automation systems to contracts affects the creation of the contract, the professionals involved, the market, regulations, and regulatory systems, as well as contract law. Two main consequences of this change. The first one is the application to the legal sector and to the contract of a larger phenomenon: the servitization or productification/mercification of professional performance. The second disruptive factor introduced by these technologies, less underlined, is the possibility to use data to manage, conclude and analyse contracts. Contracts are no longer represented by paper documents. The contract is moving from document to data, represented as a set of fluid information and it can be organized and managed by technology for the efficient (and peaceful) relationship of the parties. The paper describes this contract revolution analysing: (1) the effects on the legal products, legal market, and legal professionals; (2) the role of the legal tech company as a new intermediary; (3) compliance and regtech new possibilities; (4) applications to asymmetries and clauses evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a sub-branch of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) is an inductive method of problem solving which can accomplish tasks that once required human participation and discretion. As governments and other institutions increasingly deploy ML-based systems to predict, rate and act upon individuals' behaviour or personal traits, there is growing political and legal demand for transparency so that the outcome of these systems could be interpretable, and thus contestable where necessary. Previous research has revealed that transparency in automated decisionmaking (ADM) entails not only openness and disclosure in the conventional sense but further administrative and technical measures such as the algorithmic audit or black-box testing of these systems. The implementation of such broadened scope of transparency inevitably involves the reproduction and/or adaptation of the relevant informational elements and components of the ML-based systems. This gives rise to the questions: (1) to what extent reliance on Intellectual Property (IP) rights could excuse automated decision-makers from the obligation of making transparent and contestable decisions, e.g., under Article 22 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR); (2) what are the counter-arguments based on statutory exceptions and limitations restricting IP rights; and (3) what may be the possible solutions either within the IP regime or through regulatory intervention. Overall, the paper aims obtain a macro-view of the potential areas of conflict between the possible transparency measures/tools and the relevant IP regimes - i.e., copyright, sui generis database right and trade secret protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2019 the European Union adopted two key Directives on consumer protection with regard to digital contracts: the Directive on the supply of digital content and digital services (2019/770, hereinafter DCD), and the Directive on the online sale of goods (2019/771, hereinafter SGD). The European Commission has meant these Directives to be futureproof, which is the reason why the range of digital content under the scope of the DCD is as broad as possible, and the SGD applies to so-called 'goods with digital elements'. Yet, and in-spite of this future-proof ambition, no mention is made of what is probably the most pressing current technology: artificial intelligence (AI). This technology presents a number of important challenges as underscored by the European Commission in its recent White Paper on AI. Yet, they do not seem to have been taken into account by the Directives. This contribution therefore tries to apply the challenges identified by the Commission in the context of product safety and liability to these Directives with a focus on the DCD. It shows that it presents a number of important challenges, in particular as far as provision on conformity, remedies, or liability are concerned. Ultimately, it raises the question as to whether these Directives are able to deal with AI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]