This event is co-organized by the Centre for Private Law & the Law and Technology Centre of the University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law
Date: October 28, 2025 (Tuesday)
Time: 5:45pm – 7:15pm
Venue:Academic Conference Room, 11/F Cheng Yu Tung Tower, The University of Hong Kong
Speaker: Jeannie Paterson, Professor of Law, The University of Melbourne
There has been much discussion about the why and how to regulate generative AI, which little action outside of the EU. Now the concern about AI has broadened to multi modal systems, or agentic AI. Given the relative complexity and autonomy of agentic AI systems, the earlier concerns about generative AI appear to be amplified, raising risks of adversarial attacks on networks of agents, the widespread decline of cognitive capacity and interpersonal skills among young people, deep fake erosion of trust in democratic institutions or the amplification of discrimination in automated decision making. There are also less catastrophic variations: AI agents simply ‘getting it wrong’ in terms of information or actions in the field of healthcare, finance or legal assistance. These possibilities raise questions for private lawyers. For example, it has been asked how tort liability can attach to a flawed AI service provided via an AI operating with some unique degree of autonomy, how contractual liability will be allocated in an enterprise with multiple elements and collaborators, and whether end users will be adequately protected? Can developers and deployers contract out or at least constrain the scope of their services? These questions require careful, informed and often cross-disciplinary analysis. In some contexts, legislation may provide a clearer and more coherent response to the challenges of AI challenges. However, it is possible that private law will be capable of providing a palatable resolution. Indeed, the impact of AI characteristics of complexity, opacity and lack of foresight on the law may be somewhat overstated as these are issues the law frequently must deal. This paper explores these issues in the context of generative and agentic AI services.
Jeannie Marie Paterson is a Professor of Law (consumer protection) and the cofounding director of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Ethics (CAIDE) at The University of Melbourne. Her research and teaching focuses on consumer protection and the regulatory challenges posed by AI. She is interested in the question of how to design effectively regulation for AI safety and liability. Her current research considers how law should respond to the relationship between humans and AI agents, companions and assistants in roles previously performed by humans. She teaches consumer protection law, law and technology and regulating AI. She is the co-author of the widely used text (with Professor Andrew Robertson) Principle of Contract Law, as well as work on consumer credit law, consumer law and AI, regulation and law.
Commentator: Eliza Mik, Assistant Professor of Law, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Eliza Mik teaches Legal Technologies, E-Commerce Law and Contract Law at the Faculty of Law, Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research interests focus on the legal aspects of transaction automation, with special focus on smart contracts and the integration of Artificial Intelligence into commercial workstreams. Before joining academia, she worked in-house for a number of software and telecommunications companies in Australia, Poland, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates, advising on technology procurement, software licensing and e-commerce regulation.
Moderator: Kelvin Low, Professor & Director of the Centre for Private Law, The University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law
To register, please visit https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_regform.aspx?guest=Y&UEID=103034.
For inquiries, please contact Ms. Grace Chan at / 3917 4727.