Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Spring 2026
Publisher
Boston University School of Law
Language
en-US
Abstract
Is it reasonable to be dystopian about how the future will likely unfold? We think so. For some time, we have been arguing that facial recognition technology is a perfect tool of oppression, and that its pernicious affordances are leading society down a slippery slope toward the evisceration of privacy by obscurity. This is a soft form of “determinism”—the notion that while technology is not an unstoppable force and the future is not preordained, there nevertheless are identifiable factors, such as the invitingness of affordances, human nature, and incentives that drive technology in certain directions and make some social outcomes more likely to occur than others. But would Ryan Calo agree—not only that the type of prediction we make is sound, but that also our proposed solution, the line drawing of an absolute prohibition, is appropriate?
Recommended Citation
Evan Selinger & Woodrow Hartzog,
On Predicting and Stopping Dystopia
,
106
Boston University Law Review Online
45
(2026).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/4275
