Indiscreet charm of digitalization

Introduction: digitalization is a new trend of social development on the whole and the legal and political regulation in particular. The digitalization tempts and fascinates, attracts by its novelty and modernity. The idea of a fundamental change in the social order and social regulation under the digitalization influence in a broad sense is in the air and is already perceived as an axiom. At the same time, most people, both non-specialists in the area of social regulation, and even narrow professionals, will find it difficult to answer the question: what exactly will fundamentally change in the world, in society and in the economy, with the widespread introduction of digital technologies? As a result, the publications in the media and many scientific works resemble Hollywood blockbuster scenarios in the technocratic dystopia style, which leads researchers away from solving real problems of the legal regulation of changing social relations. The purpose of the study: to determine the model of interaction of law and digitalization in relation to the current level of technology development. Research objectives: to define the concept of digitalization; to consider the main trends in research on issues related to the large-scale spread of digitalization and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies; to determine the limits of the real impact of digitalization on the law and legal regulation. Methods: the system, structural and functional methods, the methods of analysis and synthesis, expert evaluation. Results: the paper describes one of the trends of modern interdisciplinary research, called by the authors “the effect of digitalization”. In relation to the sphere of legal regulation, the effect of digitalization is manifested in an attempt to see the fundamental novelty in relations using the latest technical means; the relations carried out in electronic form and/or using digital, network, telecommunication technologies, artificial intelligence. It is argued that the mediation of social relations with the latest technologies does not always lead to the change in the essence of relations and the need to create fundamentally new models of social regulation. Conclusions: digitalization in relation to the law appears in the modern world in two qualities: as an independent social phenomenon and as a tool designed to give the legal mechanisms efficiency and accessibility. At the present level of technology development the digitalization in relation to the law should be considered as a tool to improve the legal regulation quality. The Russian practice of “digitalization for the sake of digitalization” is dangerous and inefficient in social and economic terms.