Paul Stephan, a University of Virginia distinguished professor of law and expert in international dispute resolution and comparative law, recently posed an interesting question. In the blog Lawfare, he writes, “If big data is a resource and therefore a potential target of armed conflict, what kinds of attacks justify an armed response and what are the rules governing such attacks?” His post comes at an interesting time, when “[s]urveillance-oriented states, of which China is the foremost example, use big data to guide and bolster monitoring of their own people as well as potential foreign threats,” Stephan wrote. And don’t forget the renewed interest in artificial intelligence, “which uses big data as a means of optimizing the training and algorithm design on which it depends, as a cultural, economic, and social phenomenon,” he said.
Paul B. Stephan
