The Ethics of Interacting with Machines
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Exploring human/bot relationships in delivering human-centred activities.
Humans and Chatbots
Contractual Liability for AI Agents and Assistants
CAIDE Director Prof Jeannie Paterson will be presenting 'Contractual Liability for AI Agents and Assistants', a lecture hosted by Melbourne Law School's Obligations Group and chaired by Melbourne Law School Professor Andrew Robertson, on 7 May 2026 from 5:30-6:30pm in Room 108 of Melbourne Law School.
The lecture will consider the contractual liability arising from mistakes made by AI algorithms, assistants and agents, and the extent to which the existing law of contract in Australia responds to these harms, and the unique features and inherent risks of AI in this setting. It will ultimately seek to demonstrate the capacity of contract law to respond in ways that are doctrinally and normatively compelling to transactional AI harms.
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Undue Influence of AI Assistants and Companions
CAIDE Director Prof Jeannie Paterson, alongside Prof Elise Bant (University of Western Australia) recently wrote 'The Undue Influence of AI Assistants, Agents and Companions' (2026) 19(2) Journal of Equity 107. The article explores whether and how the equitable doctrine of undue influence (generally applied to influence between natural human persons) can respond to interactions between AI services and consumers.
Read the Article [requires Lexis+ Subscription]
AI Mimicking Human Behaviours
CAIDE Director Prof Jeannie Paterson recently wrote ‘AI Mimicking and Interpreting Humans: Legal and Ethical Reflections’ [2025] Journal of Bioethical Inquiry. The article explored questions of law, practical ethics and policy development in determining where AI tries to mimic or interpret humans , and where in intimate or personal interactions we may demand rules of transparency to prevent deceptive conduct.
AI and Consumer Protection
CAIDE Director Prof Jeannie Paterson, alongside Associate Prof Yvette Maker (University of Tasmania), recently wrote the chapter ‘Consumer Protection Law and AI’ in Ernest Lim and Phillip Morgan (eds), The Cambridge Handbook of Private Law and Artificial Intelligence (Cambridge University Press, 2024). Her chapter explored the growing consumer vulnerabilities when facing market use of AI and the role of consumer protection law in both adapting and recalibrating itself in the face of new technology.
Transparency in AI
CAIDE Director Prof Jeannie Paterson wrote 'Misleading or Deceptive AI: Why Transparency Provides the Baseline for Responsible AI in Consumer Transactions' (2024) 18 UNSW Law Society Court of Conscience 113. The article focussed on the role of transparency in developing responsible AI and in particular in the high-impact site of operation that is the business-to-consumer transaction.
Ethics of Mental Health
CAIDE Deputy Directors Simon Coghlan and Marc Cheong, along with CAIDE Affiliate Graduate Researcher Susie Sheldrick, co-authored 'To chat or bot to chat: Ethical issues with using chatbots in mental health' [2023] Digital Health with A/Prof Piers Gooding (then of Melbourne Law School) and Simon D'Alfonso and Kobi Leins of the School of Computing and Information Systems. The paper explored the ethical issues surrounding the emergence of mental health chatbots and offered recommendations for chatbot designers, purveyors , researchers and mental health practitioners.
Can AI benefit mental health care?
Two CAIDE academics debated this timely question in the subject 'Debating Science in Society', run by Prof Fiona Fidler. For the 'Yes' side, Deputy Director Dr Simon Coghlan argued that AI can help struggling people who can't access human mental health therapists. For the 'No' side, CAIDE Theme Leader Dr Jacinthe Flore argued that AI is too risky and lacks vital human qualities. The debate stimulated very lively discussion in the audience, with students critiquing both sides of the argument.
Theme Leaders
This theme is led by Dr Simon Coghlan of the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology (CAIDE Deputy Director) and Dr Jacinthe Flore (Medical Humanities Research Lab) of the Faculty of Arts.