Podcast Summary: "Ryan Calo Wants to Change the Relationship Between Law and Technology"

The Tech Policy Press Podcast
Host: Justin Hendricks
Guest: Ryan Calo, Professor of Law & Information Science, University of Washington
Date: October 26, 2025

Overview

In this episode, host Justin Hendricks speaks with Ryan Calo, a leading legal scholar and author of Law and Technology: A Methodical Approach (forthcoming from Oxford University Press). Calo discusses his new book’s central argument: that law should act as a deliberate framework guiding the expansion of technology towards human flourishing, rather than merely reacting to technological disruption. The conversation explores why U.S. lawmakers often feel powerless in the face of technological change, the importance of reframing our regulatory approach, and the actionable methodologies Calo proposes for policymakers, legal scholars, and society at large.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Reframing Law’s Role with Technology

• Shift from Passive Acceptance to Deliberate Engagement
  Calo argues against the reflexive acceptance of new technologies, urging legal scholars and society to adopt more evaluative stances, much like the Amish or Orthodox Jews who assess tech based on community values (02:07).

  “The Amish don’t sit there and go, oh, I guess there’s augmented reality now... They do not accept the technology if it is not consistent with their values of community and service....I just find that edifying for the possibilities it opens up for American tech policy."
  — Ryan Calo (02:21)

• Defining Technology Calo adopts a clear, artifact-centric definition:

  "I’m talking about artifacts and systems…crafted by people in order to alter and extend human affordances.”
  — Ryan Calo (04:50)
  This sets boundaries for the book, distinguishing tech from broader constructs like law or race-as-technology.

2. Technology as “Social Fact”

• Exceptionalism and Inevitability
  Calo challenges the cultural perception that technology is unstoppable and fundamentally unlike other social facts (like religion or race), emphasizing it is only the perception of inevitability that makes tech seem ungovernable.

  "If there's an exceptionalism that I embrace in technology, it is the perception of its difference and not its actual difference."
  — Ryan Calo (06:36)

• Case Study: Nevada's Self-Driving Car Law
  An example of how lawmakers uncritically imported an industry’s framing, leading to problematic policy:

  “Nevada passes a law that is based entirely on the Google driverless car... Within a year...Nevada had to repeal the law and start over. And this was a great instance of taking the particular instantiation of the technology as being the only possibility.”
  — Ryan Calo (09:32)

3. The “Fetishism” of Technology and Innovation

• Innovation Fetishism
  Calo critiques the societal and legislative tendency to both praise technology uncritically and avoid regulating it due to a disproportionate loyalty to innovation:

  “We give it a pass time and again... an abject failure in technology just gets swept under the rug. It just gets ignored.”
  — Ryan Calo (13:01)

• Contact Tracing Apps: A Pandemic Example
  The failure of Covid-era contact tracing apps demonstrates this pattern: solutions were built out of a sense of obligation, not actual feasibility—yet no meaningful accountability followed:

  “It was never ever going to work, ever, because that’s not what phones are for... we were exactly right.”
  — Ryan Calo (14:43)

4. A Methodical Approach to Law and Technology

• The Need for Methodology
  Calo proposes a systematic, four-step analytical approach for law and technology:

  1. Define the Technology & Its Novelty: Precisely clarify the tech in question and what is non-contingent or genuinely new about it (20:04).
  2. Assess Stakeholder Impacts: Examine direct and indirect effects on all affected parties (20:25).
  3. Analyze Against a Normative Baseline: Compare technology’s effects with societal, legal, or ethical benchmarks; clarify what “ought” is being pursued (20:50).
  4. Make Recommendations & Identify Levers of Power: Offer actionable policy actions grounded in existing power structures and realistic options (21:09).

  “It’s not a roadmap for writing an article... Rather, it’s the exercise that you do to understand and analyze the technology that you’re interested in. It’s a way to surface your assumptions.”
  — Ryan Calo (21:23)

  “If you’re going to tell us what we ought to do, we should know what your normative baseline is... Since lawyers love to tell people what they ought to do, where’s the ought? And that I think is an innovation.”
  — Ryan Calo (24:07)

5. Power, Social Balance & Long-Term Change

• The Surveillance State & Policy Equilibrium
  Calo warns that American regulatory environments, particularly around surveillance, are vastly out of balance. Legal changes can happen rapidly but often have unpredictable lingering effects:

  “So we may wake up from this nightmare and decide to make changes, but nevertheless we're not going to unring the bell of unmitigated access to surveillance equipment for law enforcement.”
  — Ryan Calo (29:33)

6. Concrete Proposals for the Future

• Emulate the Amish on Tech Deliberation
  Calo suggests law should not reconcile itself to technology, but rather act as a balancing and investigative force—following the Amish model by evaluating alignment with societal values (31:06).

• Revive Technology Assessment
  The U.S. should bring back or expand expert institutions like the Office of Technology Assessment to help policymakers navigate tech:

  “I think we need to embrace technology assessment to a far greater degree than we are today.”
  — Ryan Calo (33:38)

• Protect Whistleblowers and Third-Party Researchers
  Many critical technology harms are uncovered by independent researchers or whistleblowers, who face direct threats and lack adequate protection:

  “We do not protect people adequately whose job it is or who takes on the job of blowing the whistle...testing systems for safety, bias, privacy and so on.”
  — Ryan Calo (34:48)

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the cultural inevitability of tech:
  “Technology shapes society, but in turn is shaped by society. And that is no different from other social facts.”
  — Ryan Calo (06:22)

• On power and legislation:
  “Once upon a time it was fine to say, oh, I do law and technology, which means I apply the law to technology. But what aspect of contemporary life does technology not touch today?... What distinguishes we who...think of ourselves as law and technology scholars? Well, my position is that it’s the methods that we use.”
  — Ryan Calo (19:24)

• On urgency and long-term change:
  “Things can change very fast. They can also change back very fast. But that doesn't mean there won’t be lasting effects.”
  — Ryan Calo (26:54)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:47 — Introduction (Ryan Calo's background & book motivation)
• 02:07 — Amish and deliberative approaches to technology
• 04:06 — Defining “technology” for legal analysis
• 07:46 — Nevada self-driving car law: lessons for policymakers
• 11:32 — The problem of “innovation fetishism”
• 14:43 — Contact tracing apps and accountability in tech
• 17:01 — Why law needs a methodical, cross-disciplinary approach to tech
• 20:04 — The four-step methodology for law & technology scholarship
• 26:43 — The state of tech/law equilibrium and historical analogies
• 30:50 — Practical recommendations: assessment revivals and researcher protections
• 33:38 — The need for technology assessment and whistleblower protections

Conclusion

Ryan Calo’s episode is a call for more grounded, intentional, and critical engagement with technology in legal scholarship and policy. Through historic analogies, sharp critique of current policy failures, and methodical frameworks, Calo provides a toolkit for legal scholars, policymakers, and the broader public to meaningfully guide the impact of technology rather than being shaped by it. He urges the legal community to revive rigorous assessment practices and build institutional protections for those uncovering technological harms, offering a way forward toward a more balanced and just relationship between technology and society.

Recommended Action for Listeners:
Pick up Ryan Calo’s Law and Technology: A Methodical Approach (available for pre-order as of the episode date) to explore the framework and methods in-depth.