Datum/Zeit
4. September 2026
11:00 - 12:30

Adresse
JUFA Hotel Waldviertel
Hamerlingstraße 8
Raabs an der Thaya
Österreich

The Right to a Human Decision

Jeremias Adams-Prassl

Automated decision-making systems (‘ADMS’) have become ubiquitous. The benefits are clear; so are the perils. Regulators have sought to keep pace, not least by attempting to ban the full automation of significant decisions. Article 22(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation (‘GDPR’) epitomises this approach, affording data subjects ‘the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing … which produces legal effects concerning [them] or similarly significantly affects [them].’

But does this right still make sense today, when AI and other high-dimensional decision-making systems have come to dominate our daily lives? In this talk, I will set out to evaluate the development of a right to a human decision against the legal and technical background to bans on fully automated decision-making. I suggest that broad bans should be replaced with context-specific regulatory responses. These should include targeted bans, as well as alternative safeguards ranging from data subjects’ ex-ante involvement in shaping automated decision-making processes (what I have termed ‘Humans Before the Loop’), ex-post challenges of individual decisions (‘Humans After the Loop’), and regular reviews of system-level impacts (‘Humans Above the Loop’).

Jeremias Adams-Prassl is Professor of Law and Associate Dean (Research) at the Faculty of Law, and a Fellow of Magdalen College, University of Oxford. He read law at Oxford, Paris and Harvard Law School and holds an honorary doctorate in law from Lund University. Jeremias‘ research focuses on technology, innovation policy and the future of work in the European Union and beyond, supported by grants and prizes including an ERC Starting Grant and the Philip Leverhulme Prize.