[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-125994-en":3,"doc-seo-125994-105":31,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":93},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":21,"is_downloadable":21,"audit_status":21,"page_count":22,"language":23,"language_code":24,"site_id":25,"html_lang":24,"table_of_contents":26,"faqs":27,"seo_title":28,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":29,"read_time":30},125994,687207024643,"Oliver","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_3d24733baf745e90a7e4bdd5f77d97b2",8,"Research & Report","Non-Determinism and the Lawlessness of Machine Learning Code - research paper","Legal discussions of machine learning (ML) often emphasize harms, focusing on individual model outcomes and summary error rates, which obscures how ML depends on randomness—specifically stochasticity and non-determinism. This paper clarifies how non-determinism and arbitrariness relate, and argues that viewing ML outputs as distributions over possible results makes their effects, and legal implications, more transparent. The distributional approach complements analyses of concrete decisions and shows why ML code falls outside “code as law” assumptions, concluding with how ML and law can constrain harm.","Non-Determinism and the Lawlessness of Machine Learning Code  \nA. Feder Cooper∗  \nCornell University Ithaca, NY, USA [afc78@cornell.edu](afc78@cornell.edu)  \nJonathan Frankle  \nMIT Cambridge, MA, USA MosaicML  \nSan Francisco, CA, USA [jfrankle@mit.edu](jfrankle@mit.edu)  \nChristopher De Sa  \nCornell University Ithaca, NY, USA[cmd353@cornell.edu](cmd353@cornell.edu)  \narXiv :2206 . 11834v4 [ cs .CY] 14 Aug 2024  \nABSTRACT  \nLegal literature on machine learning (ML) tends to focus on harms, and thus tends to reason about individual model outcomes and summary error rates. This focus has masked important aspects of ML that are rooted in its reliance on randomness — namely, stochasticity and non-determinism. While some recent work has begun to reason about the relationship between stochasticity and arbitrariness in legal contexts, the role of non-determinism more broadly remains unexamined. In this paper, we clarify the overlap and differences between these two concepts, and show that the effects of non-determinism, and consequently its implications for the law, become clearer from the perspective of reasoning about ML outputs as distributions over possible outcomes. This distributional viewpoint accounts for randomness by emphasizing the possible outcomes of ML. Importantly, this type of reasoning is not exclusive with current legal reasoning; it complements (and in fact can strengthen) analyses concerning individual, concrete outcomes for specific automated decisions. By illuminating the important role of non-determinism, we demonstrate that ML code falls outside of the cyberlaw frame of treating “code as law,” as this frame assumes that code is deterministic. We conclude with a brief discussion of what work ML can do to constrain the potentially harm-inducing effects of non-determinism, and we indicate where the law must do work to bridge the gap between its current individual-outcome focus and the distributional approach that we recommend.  \nCCS CONCEPTS  \n• Social and professional topics → Computing / technology policy; • Applied computing → Law.  \nKEYWORDS  \nmachine learning, non-determinism, stochasticity, arbitrariness  \n∗ This paper has been updated to align with edits made in 2024 for the first author’s Ph.D. dissertation. This version, not the version published in the ACM Library, should be considered authoritative.  \nPermission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission [and/or a fee. Request permissions from permissions@acm.org](and/or a fee. Request permissions from permissions@acm.org).  \nCSLAW’22, November 1–2, 2022, Washington, DC, USA  \n© 2022 Copyright held by the owner/author(s) . Publication rights licensed to ACM. ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-9234-1/22/11. . . $15.00  \n[https://doi.org/10.1145/3511265.3550446](https://doi.org/10.1145/3511265.3550446)  \nACM Reference Format:  \nA. Feder Cooper, Jonathan Frankle, and Christopher De Sa. 2022. NonDeterminism and the Lawlessness of Machine Learning Code. In Proceedings of the 2022 Symposium on Computer Science and Law (CSLAW’22), November 1–2, 2022, Washington, DC, USA. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 9 pages. [https:](https:)//[doi.org/10.1145/3511265.3550446](doi.org/10.1145/3511265.3550446)  \n1 INTRODUCTION  \nLegal decision logic bears some resemblance with the logic of mathematical functions in that both involve procedures for mapping inputs to outputs. When adjudicating a particular case, a magistrate assembles the available evidence, which they supply as parameters to legal rules to inform decisions. Just as with ","cbCaivaaSEBxSvuq","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaivaaSEBxSvuq","pdf",560762,6,1,9,"English","en",105,"# Abstract\n## Introduction\n## Legal-ML Functional Analogy","[{\"question\":\"Why does the paper argue that focusing only on harms and error rates is insufficient?\",\"answer\":\"Because such a focus ignores ML’s reliance on randomness, especially stochasticity and non-determinism, which materially affects legal analysis.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the paper recommend reasoning about non-determinism in ML?\",\"answer\":\"By treating ML outputs as distributions over possible outcomes, which clarifies the effects and legal implications of non-determinism.\"},{\"question\":\"What does the paper conclude about the “code as law” cyberlaw frame?\",\"answer\":\"ML code falls outside the frame because that perspective assumes deterministic code, whereas ML’s non-determinism breaks that assumption.\"}]","Non-Determinism and the Lawlessness of Machine Learning Code - research paper | PDF",1785902458,23,{"code":4,"msg":32,"data":33},"ok",{"site_id":25,"language":24,"slug":34,"title":13,"keywords":35,"description":14,"schema_data":36,"social_meta":88,"head_meta":90,"extra_data":92,"updated_unix":29},"non-determinism-and-the-lawlessness-of-machine-learning-code-research-paper","",{"@graph":37,"@context":87},[38,55,70],{"@type":39,"itemListElement":40},"BreadcrumbList",[41,45,49,52],{"item":42,"name":43,"@type":44,"position":21},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":46,"name":47,"@type":44,"position":48},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":50,"name":12,"@type":44,"position":51},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":53,"name":13,"@type":44,"position":54},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/non-determinism-and-the-lawlessness-of-machine-learning-code-research-paper/125994/",4,{"url":53,"name":13,"@type":56,"author":57,"headline":13,"publisher":59,"fileFormat":62,"inLanguage":24,"description":14,"dateModified":63,"datePublished":64,"encodingFormat":62,"isAccessibleForFree":65,"interactionStatistic":66},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":58},"Person",{"url":42,"name":60,"@type":61},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-08-22","2026-08-05",true,{"@type":67,"interactionType":68,"userInteractionCount":20},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":69},"ViewAction",{"@type":71,"mainEntity":72},"FAQPage",[73,79,83],{"name":74,"@type":75,"acceptedAnswer":76},"Why does the paper argue that focusing only on harms and error rates is insufficient?","Question",{"text":77,"@type":78},"Because such a focus ignores ML’s reliance on randomness, especially stochasticity and non-determinism, which materially affects legal analysis.","Answer",{"name":80,"@type":75,"acceptedAnswer":81},"How does the paper recommend reasoning about non-determinism in ML?",{"text":82,"@type":78},"By treating ML outputs as distributions over possible outcomes, which clarifies the effects and legal implications of non-determinism.",{"name":84,"@type":75,"acceptedAnswer":85},"What does the paper conclude about the “code as law” cyberlaw frame?",{"text":86,"@type":78},"ML code falls outside the frame because that perspective assumes deterministic code, whereas ML’s non-determinism breaks that assumption.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":53,"og:type":89,"og:title":13,"og:site_name":60,"og:description":14},"article",{"robots":91,"canonical":53},"index,follow",{"doc_id":7,"site_id":25},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":94},[95,99,103,107,112,116,121,124,128,131,135],{"id":21,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":96,"show_sort_weight":97,"slug":98},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":48,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":100,"show_sort_weight":101,"slug":102},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":54,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":104,"show_sort_weight":105,"slug":106},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":108,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":109,"show_sort_weight":110,"slug":111},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":20,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":113,"show_sort_weight":114,"slug":115},"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":117,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":118,"show_sort_weight":119,"slug":120},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":11,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":12,"show_sort_weight":122,"slug":123},30,"research-report",{"id":22,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":125,"show_sort_weight":126,"slug":127},"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":126,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":129,"show_sort_weight":126,"slug":130},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":132,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":133,"show_sort_weight":132,"slug":134},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":136,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":137,"show_sort_weight":108,"slug":138},19,"General","general"]