{"id":847,"date":"2011-06-02T10:57:30","date_gmt":"2011-06-02T14:57:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=847"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:57:05","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:57:05","slug":"well-autopenned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/06\/02\/well-autopenned\/","title":{"rendered":"Well (Auto)Penned"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jake Laperruque\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

To what extent can robots replace humans?\u00a0 They\u2019ve already bested us in games such as chess and jeopardy, and one day they might even (gasp!<\/em>)\u00a0outperform humans as lawyers<\/a>.\u00a0 But could a robot replicate our society\u2019s most important lawmaking functions?\u00a0 One machine took up the challenge to a small degree last week.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Last Thursday, Congress extended three sections of the PATRIOT Act, a mere few hours before the important but controversial provisions were to expire.\u00a0 Unfortunately, President Obama was abroad\u00a0attending to important matters of state<\/a>, and could not sign the bill in time to meet the rapidly approaching sunset clause.\u00a0 So, for the first time, the President took up the services of an autopen to sign the bill into law.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The autopen is a machine that replicates signatures (check it out\u00a0here<\/a>).\u00a0 It\u2019s used frequently by the President to sign cards and letters, but until last week, the autopen had never been used to formally authorize a piece of legislation.<\/p>\n

While the robotic reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act provoked its fair share of jokes (\u201cAutopen for Prez, 2012!<\/a>\u201d) and puns (\u201cROBAMA<\/a>\u201d), some have\u00a0argued in court in support of Prop 8<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 wrote a memo while serving in the Office of Legal Council during the Bush Administration stating that the autopen was a Constitutionally permissible manner for the President to sign a bill into law (read the memo\u00a0here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Yet if the President can use machines to ease his lawmaking function, why can\u2019t other members of government, such as Congress?\u00a0 Members of the House and Senate are forced to frequently travel to and from Washington as they seek to perform legislative functions and maintain contact with their constituents.\u00a0 While some \u2013 such as Vice President Biden, who proudly commuted from his home state to the capital each day as a Senator \u2013 can easily do this, most lawmakers are forced to spend long periods of time in Washington when Congress is in session.<\/p>\n

One result has been the development of an infamous \u201cinside the Beltway culture,\u201d and a common critique that national lawmakers are out of touch with those they\u2019re supposed to represent.\u00a0 In reaction to this, members of Congress have turned to technology, using social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter (though\u00a0not always to their advantage<\/a>) to try to reach out to the people.<\/p>\n

But wouldn\u2019t it be better to do the reverse?\u00a0 Just as the President may now use a robotic pen to sign law, couldn\u2019t Congress use Internet technologies to vote on bills electronically and conduct floor debates via streaming video, rather than replace constituent outreach with\u00a0virtual town halls on YouTube<\/a>?\u00a0\u00a0While using new technologies to connect with the public is a noble goal with positive results, it seems preferable to let the Capitol go digital, and let its lawmakers go home to the people they seek to represent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jake Laperruque\u00a0 To what extent can robots replace humans?\u00a0 They\u2019ve already bested us in games such as chess and jeopardy, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-dF","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}