ABSTRACT Technology law scholarship has a tendency towards the dramatic. Technology causes disruption. Law must catch-up; it must ensure potential benefits from technology and avoid potential harms. There are even concerns that law, as an organiser of human life, is itself becoming eclipsed by forms of technological management. What is often not focused on is the practical process through which concerns about technology become transmuted into legal forms within specific jurisdictions. This paper examines the 23 years of Australian law concerning embryos and human cloning. Inspired by Carl Schmitt’s criticism of modernity’s political institutions and the laws they produce, what is identified is a machine that runs itself. It is shown to be a highly automated process whereby technical experts manage competing values. Rather than law regulating technology or technology regulating law; the Australian study suggests that law and its making, is technological.

中文翻译：

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“机器自己运行”：法律就是技术，澳大利亚胚胎和人类克隆法

摘要 技术法学研究具有戏剧化倾向。技术导致颠覆。法律必须迎头赶上；它必须确保从技术中获得潜在利益并避免潜在危害。甚至有人担心，作为人类生活组织者的法律本身正被技术管理形式所掩盖。通常不关注的是在特定司法管辖区对技术的关注转化为法律形式的实际过程。本文考察了澳大利亚 23 年来关于胚胎和人类克隆的法律。受卡尔·施密特对现代性政治制度及其产生的法律的批评的启发，所确定的是一台自行运行的机器。它被证明是一个高度自动化的过程，技术专家可以借此管理相互竞争的价值。而不是法律规范技术或技术规范法律；澳大利亚的研究表明，法律及其制定是技术性的。