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Ryan Calo

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Scholarship · Privacy and discrimination · AI safety and accountability

Ryan Calo is a University of Washington law professor whose work examines artificial intelligence, robotics, privacy and technology policy. His scholarship considers how legal institutions should respond to systems that collect information, make decisions and act in the physical world.[1][2]

Roles and affiliations

Calo is the Virginia and Prentice Bloedel Professor at the University of Washington and a founding co-director of its interdisciplinary Tech Policy Lab. He also holds appointments in the Information School and the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering. In 2011 he co-founded the We Robot law-and-policy conference with A. Michael Froomkin and Ian Kerr.[1]

Contributions and positions

A framework for AI policy

In Artificial Intelligence Policy: A Primer and Roadmap (2017), Calo sets out an introduction to the policy questions surrounding AI. The essay addresses an audience extending beyond legal specialists to policymakers, technologists, investors and students. It treats public concern about AI as a collection of questions requiring examination, rather than as a single dispute about whether the technology is desirable. The article is an entry point into the policy debate at the time of publication, rather than an inventory of subsequently enacted AI laws.[3]

Robotics and the Lessons of Cyberlaw (2015) examines whether insights developed for internet law can be carried over to robotics. Calo identifies the combination of information processing and physical action, the difficulty of anticipating some machine behavior, and the tendency to treat robots as something between people and tools. He argues that these characteristics create a distinctive set of legal problems and may require institutional adaptation. His argument concerns how law should respond to a technology; it does not establish that robots possess legal rights or that a particular liability rule applies to every AI system.[2]

The debate also concerns the usefulness of treating robotics as a separate legal field. A University of Washington account of the article, republished by ScienceDaily, describes responses from other writers, including disagreement over whether principles applicable to robots are different from principles applicable to computers generally. This provides context for the scholarly argument rather than evidence of a settled legal classification.[4]

Privacy and legislative engagement

Calo's faculty biography records testimony before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee on July 11, 2024, at a hearing on privacy and AI. It describes his support for comprehensive federal privacy legislation addressing both personal privacy and the development and deployment of AI. The testimony is a policy position, not a statement that Congress enacted his preferred framework.[1]

Selected works

News and coverage

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 University of Washington School of Law, Ryan Calo, faculty profile. Accessed September 7, 2026.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Ryan Calo, Robotics and the Lessons of Cyberlaw, 103 California Law Review 513–563 (2015), author manuscript and abstract. Accessed September 7, 2026.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Ryan Calo, Artificial Intelligence Policy: A Primer and Roadmap, 51 U.C. Davis Law Review 399 (2017), UW repository. Accessed September 7, 2026.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 ScienceDaily, Robotics and the law: When software can harm you, July 13, 2015; University of Washington material. Accessed September 7, 2026.
  5. ↑ University of Washington repository, Robot Law: Volume II (2025), edited by Ryan Calo, A. Michael Froomkin and Kristen Thomasen. Accessed September 7, 2026.
Profile sources last reviewed September 7, 2026. Dated positions and developments are identified in the text.
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