Books
Joshua A.T. Fairfield has written two books on law and technology for Cambridge University Press, with a third on the way.
Professor Fairfield writes about what happens to familiar ideas — ownership, privacy, contract, community — when fast-moving technology gets hold of them: who really controls the devices and data in our lives, what privacy means now, how agreements work when software writes them, and what artificial intelligence is doing to human judgment. His central argument is that law is itself a technology — one we build, and can rebuild, to keep pace with change. The books are written to be read by anyone, not only lawyers.
“Fairfield’s Runaway Technology offers a powerful argument for the centrality of law to our efforts to tackle a range of contemporary threats through organization and cooperation.”
- Aaron Perzanowski, Case Western Reserve UniversityOwned
Property, Privacy, and the New Digital Serfdom - Cambridge University Press, 2017
Joshua A. T. Fairfield explains the crisis of digital ownership — how and why we no longer control our smartphones or software-enabled devices, which are effectively owned by software and content companies.
We no longer own our "smart" televisions, which are also used by advertisers to listen in to our living rooms. If we do not take back our ownership rights, the same will soon be said of our self-driving cars and software-enabled homes. We risk becoming digital peasants — owned by software and advertising companies, and by overreaching governments.
What Others Have to Say About ‘Owned’
“Nothing less than our autonomy, security, and privacy are at stake. In Owned, Fairfield illuminates the path forward for property. He offers a powerful theoretical vision and a set of practical reforms that could help us restore control over our digital futures.”
“The Internet of Things presents new threats to liberty. You don’t own your front door; the company running its software does. Fairfield tells us how law needs to change to protect our ancient rights of ownership over the things we buy.”
“Property in the digital age is getting strange. You can own things you can’t see or touch, like Bitcoins. But your ownership of things you can, like your car and your phone, has never been less secure. Owned is an essential guide to how not to get owned by the things you think you own.”
Runaway Technology
Can Law Keep Up? - Cambridge University Press, 2021
Law often seems to take a back seat to rampant technological change. In this riveting work, Joshua A. T. Fairfield calls Silicon Valley's bluff. He shows that law can keep up with technology — because law is itself a kind of technology, a social technology built out of cooperative fictions like firms, nations, and money. To secure the benefits of technological change for everyone, we need a new kind of law: one that reflects how humans actually use language to cooperate.
What Others Have to Say About ‘Runaway Technology’
“Professor Fairfield has given us a critically important and engaging book. It is urgent, yet has timeless wisdom. It is erudite, but also highly accessible. It is consequential yet still laced with commendable levity.”
“Can democracy keep pace with technology? Yes, says Joshua Fairfield, but only if we swiftly adapt the language of law itself.”
“Fairfield reminds us that law, when properly conceptualized as a dynamic social technology, provides a set of tools for constructing, adapting, interrogating, and justifying the narratives that guide our culture and our future.”
Coming Soon!
A Third Book on Artificial Intelligence & Law
Professor Fairfield is at work on his third book, on artificial intelligence and the law. Where Runaway Technology asked whether law can keep pace with technological change, and Owned traced the quiet erosion of digital property, the new book turns to a harder question: how we hold on to authenticity, judgment, and human connection as AI reshapes the way we write, decide, and relate to one another. More details to come.