THIS WEBSITE IS NOT BEING ACTIVELY MAINTAINED. The bio and interests above are more-or-less up-to-date, but see:
Marco Almada is a doctoral researcher at the European University Institute. His current doctrinal research deals with the limits of technology-neutral regulation of AI technologies, with special focus on the relevance of technical factors for administrative law. He also has broader theoretical interests in science and technology studies, the philosopy of science, and legal theory.
Before joining the EUI as a researcher, Almada has obtained degrees in law (LL.B. 2020, USP) and computing (BS 2014, MSc 2018, both at Unicamp). His master’s thesis in computing investigated the use of simulations as tools for obtaining knowledge about social phenomena, a topic that proved itself relevant for research on the law of artificial intelligence.
Outside academia, Almada has worked as a senior researcher on Artificial Intelligence and Law at the Lawgorithm think tank, being involved in research and policy projects. He has also worked as a business-oriented data scientist for companies of various sizes in a few industries.
PhD in Law, 2024
European University Institute
LLM in Comparative, European and International Laws, 2021
European University Institute
LLB in Law, 2020
University of São Paulo
MSc in Computer Engineering, 2018
University of Campinas
BSc in Computer Science, 2014
University of Campinas
Over the past few days, I have read Michael Strevens’s The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science . This book caught my attention because it creates a clash between two biases of mine: while, on the one hand, I am sceptical about method-centric accounts of science, I am also very interested in seeing treatments of the irrational elements of scientific practice.1 So, after seeing some enthusiastic reviews on Twitter, I decided to give this book a try.
In October 2020, legendary science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson published his final book-length story: The Ministry for the Future. The book’s story begins with a massive heatwave in India in the near future, which kills millions of people and spurs global action. Most of the narrative is centred on the so-called Ministry, an international organisation based on Zurich and created with limited powers to defend the interests of the future generations within the Paris Agreement framework.
Happy New Year, everyone! The start of this new year also brings my second term in Italy, after a very productive (but exhausting!) first term. In the last few months, I learned much and meet various colleagues and professors, and joined some interesting projects. However, I have not blogged as much as I planned, and that is something I intend to change, as blog posts seem a good medium for texts that are too big for a reasonable Twitter thread and too informal (or still undeveloped) for a paper.
Like many scholars, I did not get much published in 2020. However, one of my projects that did move forward is a book chapter on Dune and corporate law, written in Portuguese (with João Gabriel Arato Ferreira) for a book on geek law. In this chapter, we analyse the corporate structure of the CHOAM Company, a major player in the first books of the Dune series, and compare it with Brazilian corporate law.
Principles and implementations of legal norms that enable data subjects to contest automated decision-making that affects them.
Investigating how AI can bring new tools and questions for legal philosophy.
Investigating how simulations of social phenomena are used in academia and elsewhere as decision-aiding tools.