Written by Bart van der Sloot

Much of modern law rests on a simple idea about human beings: we are rational, autonomous individuals who make decisions based on information and deliberate choice.

But what if this picture of the human being is incomplete?

From Autonomy to Ambiguity: Reconfiguring the Legal Landscape in the Age of AI argues that law should move beyond its narrow focus on autonomy and instead recognise a more fundamental feature of the human condition: ambiguity. Humans are not simply rational decision-makers. We are conflicted, dependent, emotional, and often inconsistent. The rise of digital technologies and artificial intelligence makes this ambiguity more visible—and more problematic for legal systems built on an overly simplified model of human behaviour.

The myth of the purely autonomous individual

The dominant legal paradigm assumes that individuals are capable of managing their own informational environment. Give people transparency, access to data, and control rights, and they will exercise their autonomy effectively.

This assumption has shaped many legal frameworks. Privacy law emphasises consent and informational self-determination. Data protection regimes provide rights to access, rectify, and control personal data. These mechanisms are intended to empower individuals against powerful institutions.

Yet this model relies on an idealised conception of the human mind. It assumes that individuals are coherent, self-aware, and capable of consistently acting in their own interests.

Reality is far more complicated.

Human beings are driven not only by reason but also by habit, emotion, social pressures, and subconscious impulses. Our preferences shift over time. Our present self may disagree with our past self, and both may conflict with our future aspirations. The idea that individuals can reliably manage complex informational environments therefore rests on a fragile foundation.

Digital technologies amplify human contradictions

This mismatch between legal assumptions and human reality becomes especially visible in the digital age.

Modern data technologies do not simply affect our rational capacities; they interact with the full complexity of the human psyche. They appeal simultaneously to our rational ambitions and our instinctive impulses. They promise empowerment and self-improvement while also encouraging dependency, distraction, and comparison.

Digital infrastructures constantly confront us with information about ourselves: data about our past behaviour, predictions about our future actions, and comparisons with others. In doing so, they expose and intensify the internal contradictions that already exist within the human mind.

The result is that the delicate equilibrium between different aspects of our identity becomes increasingly unstable. Technologies designed to inform and empower us can also undermine the coherence of our self-understanding.

Yet the law typically responds to these developments by doubling down on the same assumptions about rational autonomy. When digital technologies create problems—such as manipulation, misinformation, or behavioural targeting—the regulatory response often focuses on increasing transparency or strengthening individual control rights.

Ironically, these solutions rely on the very capacities that digital environments tend to weaken.

The overlooked importance of ambiguity

To address this tension, we need a richer understanding of the human condition.

Human identity is not simply a factual record of events or characteristics. Rather, it is something we construct through narratives—stories about who we are, where we come from, and where we are going. This process necessarily involves selection, interpretation, and even distortion. Individuals emphasise certain experiences while ignoring others, creating a coherent sense of self.

In a world where algorithms collect vast amounts of data about our past, present, and potential future, these personal narratives become increasingly vulnerable. Third parties may possess information about us that we ourselves do not know—or may prefer not to know.

Legal systems built solely around the idea of informational access and control struggle to deal with this reality. In some cases, more information does not empower individuals; it disrupts their ability to maintain a coherent identity.

Consider, for example, predictive profiling. A bank’s algorithm might classify someone as a high-risk customer based on patterns in their data. A social media platform might infer political preferences or sexual orientation that the individual does not recognise in themselves. Such classifications raise difficult questions: whose version of reality should prevail—the algorithm’s or the individual’s?

These dilemmas illustrate why law must take human ambiguity seriously.

Rethinking legal protections

Recognising ambiguity does not mean abandoning autonomy as a legal value. Rather, it means acknowledging that autonomy is only one aspect of the human condition.

Legal frameworks should also consider the role of uncertainty, dependency, and narrative identity. In some situations, individuals may need protection not only from misuse of their data but also from unwanted informational confrontations.

Existing legal doctrines already hint at this possibility. For example, the “right not to know” in medical law allows patients to avoid certain information about their health. Similarly, rules against unsolicited communications protect individuals from informational overload.

These principles suggest that legal systems can, under certain circumstances, recognise that not knowing may sometimes be beneficial.

Building on such ideas, the book explores the possibility of developing new legal concepts—such as a broader right to fiction—that would allow individuals to preserve the narrative coherence of their identities in an age of data saturation.

Towards a new legal paradigm

The broader message of From Autonomy to Ambiguity is that law must reconsider its foundational assumptions about human beings.

Digital technologies do not simply challenge existing legal rules; they expose the limitations of the anthropological model on which those rules are based. A legal system that treats humans as purely rational and autonomous will struggle to address the complexities of a data-driven society.

Instead, law must recognise the ambiguous nature of human existence: our simultaneous capacity for reason and impulse, independence and dependency, knowledge and ignorance.

Only by acknowledging this ambiguity can we begin to design legal frameworks capable of responding to the realities of the digital age.

---