Emerging Technologies and the Courts

The world is changing at a faster pace today than ever before, in large part fueled by an unprecedented rate of technology advances. This pace of technological change will only accelerate going forward. We all must take this reality of unprecedented change into account as we plan our futures, perform our professional duties, and in the case of judges, write judicial opinions. As Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court John Roberts stated in an interview at the time of his appointment, “politicians – and judges for that matter – should be wary of the assumption that the future will be little more than an extension of things as they are.”1 It is human nature to perceive the world today the same as it was yesterday, and the same as it will be tomorrow. This static view of the world is an illusion, however, and masks the unprecedented disruptive change going on in the world around us