Artificial intelligence’s impact on law, the sustainable development of space, and wrongful convictions are among the subjects covered in the books shortlisted for this year’s $60,000 Donner Prize.

The Donner Canadian Foundation announced the shortlist on April 11.

The annual award recognizes the best book about public policy written by a Canadian. The winner, to be announced at an event on May 8, will receive $60,000. Each of the four finalists will receive $7,500.

The five shortlisted titles are:

• The Legal Singularity: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Law Radically Better by Abdi Aidid and Benjamin Alarie (University of Toronto Press)
• Pandemic Panic: How Canadian Government Responses to COVID-19 Changed Civil Liberties Forever by Joanna Baron and Christine Van Geyn (Optimum Publishing International)
• Who Owns Outer Space? International Law, Astrophysics, and the Sustainable Development of Space by Michael Byers and Aaron Boley (Cambridge University Press)
• The Privacy Fallacy: Harm and Power in the Information Economy by Ignacio Cofone (Cambridge University Press)
• Wrongfully Convicted: Guilty Pleas, Imagined Crimes, and What Canada Must Do to Safeguard Justice by Kent Roach (Simon & Schuster Canada)

The shortlisted titles were selected from more than 80 books submitted by 32 publishers.