Articles and Columns for August 2024

• Artificial Intelligence and the Law – David Colarusso founded and co-directs the Suffolk University Law School’s Legal Innovation & Technology (LIT) Lab. By training he is an attorney and science educator. By experience, he’s a data scientist, craftsman, and writer. LLRX is pleased to share what Colarusso states is not a traditional syllabus, because this class he is teaching is not a traditional class. He won’t just ask you to “think like a lawyer,” he will require that you act like one. In-class time will be devoted mostly to running simulations of varying fidelity for ten potentially precedent making cases and arguing the merits of proposed AI legislation. In addition to serving as an attorney—taking a case from trial through appeal—you will have the chance to act as a judge, jury, legislator, and legislative advisor. He says…”we’re in for some serious play.”
• AI in Finance and Banking, August 30, 2024 – This semi-monthly column by Sabrina I. Pacifici highlights news, government reports, NGO/IGO papers, industry white papers, academic papers and speeches on the subject of AI’s fast paced impact on the banking and finance sectors. The chronological links provided are to the primary sources, and as available, indicate links to alternate free versions. Six highlights from this post: Blockchain for Ethical and Transparent Generative AI Utilization by Banking and Finance Lawyers; Government as Venture Capitalists in AI; How will Generative AI impact Communication?; Artificial Intelligence the Key to Greater Financial Inclusion; The Transformative Impact of AI in Finance and Banking; From Man vs. Machine to Man + Machine: The art and AI of stock analyses.
• How Can Law Professors Effectively Teach AI Literacy to Law Students? Legal AI Studio – This spring the Michigan State University College of Law and the MSU Center for Law, Technology & Innovation introduced the “LegalRnD AI Studio,” a groundbreaking mini-course series designed to elevate law students’ AI literacy, focusing on practical skills in generative AI. Dennis Kennedy shares how you can replicate this successful model and provide your students with the essential AI literacy they need at your school.
• The Best of America – Captured in Print for the First Time – Oregon Loves New York: A Story of American Unity After 9/11 documents an important event in American history that is little known: the Flight for Freedom, an achievement unequaled by any other community in the United States. Written by Sally Ruth Bourrie with a new edition in 2023, Oregon Loves New York is available online at independent bookstores and major retailers.
• Chat GPT is bullshit – Recently, there has been considerable interest in large language models: machine learning systems which produce human-like text and dialogue. Applications of these systems have been plagued by persistent inaccuracies in their output; these are often called “AI hallucinations”. Dr. Michael Townsen Hicks, Dr. James Humphries and Dr. Joe Slater argue that these falsehoods, and the overall activity of large language models, is better understood as bullshit in the sense explored by Frankfurt (On Bullshit, Princeton, 2005): the models are in an important way indifferent to the truth of their outputs. They distinguish two ways in which the models can be said to be bullshitters, and argue that they clearly meet at least one of these definitions. They further argue that describing AI misrepresentations as bullshit is both a more useful and more accurate way of predicting and discussing the behaviour of these systems.
• Is Your Firm Disclosing the Risks Associated to Using AI? – Patrick McKenna calls out the importance to the legal community of a new public database, the AI Risk Repository, that lists ALL the ways AI could go wrong. Its creators hope their work could lead to further research to determine which risks to take more seriously.Its creators hope their work could lead to further research to determine which risks to take more seriously.
• Rejecting Dogmas Around AI, User Privacy, and Tech Policy – The Markup’s Ross Teixeira had a virtual discussion with Jonathan Frankle, Chief Scientist at DataBricks, about the the ethics of companies using customer data to train models, the growing trend of integrating AI models into our personal devices and lives, and how people can get involved in policy conversations from national to local level.
• Complicated app settings are a threat to user privacy – Default privacy settings in popular mobile apps seem like a convenience, allowing you to use a single setting to control the level of privacy – who can see which actions you take – across all of the app’s functions. Prof. Joseph K. Nwankpa specifies how default privacy settings are also a potential risk to your privacy.
• AI in Banking and Finance, August 15, 2024 – This semi-monthly column by Sabrina I. Pacifici highlights news, government reports, NGO/IGO papers, industry white papers, academic papers and speeches on the subject of AI’s fast paced impact on the banking and finance sectors. The chronological links provided are to the primary sources, and as available, indicate links to alternate free versions. Six highlights from this post: How Conversational and Generative AI is shaking up the banking industry; IMF AI Preparedness Index; Deep Learning for Economists; Crisis Amplifier? How to Prevent AI from Worsening the Next Economic Downturn; Generative artificial intelligence and cyber security in central banking; and Financial agencies’ AI tests could get reprieve from enforcement.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, August 31, 2024 – Six highlights from this week: Remote Work: A Ticking Time Bomb Waiting to be Exploited; Microsoft to overhaul Windows security after outage hits hospitals; How safe is Telegram?; Wyze’s new AI feature lets users search security cam footage; Safeguarding Subsea Cables Protecting Cyber Infrastructure amid Great Power Competition; and When A.I.’s Output Is a Threat to A.I. Itself.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, August 24, 2024 – Five highlights from this week: Meta’s new crawler could scrape your page, even when you don’t want it to; Don’t trust Google for customer service numbers. It might be a scam; Cox Communications Battles Copyright Case That Could Disrupt TV Streaming for Millions; U.S. government urging to update Galaxy phones due to vulnerability; and IRS still faces security challenges in aftermath of taxpayer data leak.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, August 17, 2024 – Six highlights from this week: This is likely the biggest password leak ever: nearly 10 billion credentials exposed; How to Stay Safe From Third-Party Seller Scams; The US Supreme Court Kneecapped US Cyber Strategy; DOJ Leads Efforts Among Federal, International, and Private Sector Partners to Disrupt Covert Russian Government-Operated Social Media Bot Farm.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, August 9, 2024 – Five highlights from this week: Nearly 3 billion people just had their data leaked!!; Text message exploits are scarier than ever, but you can protect yourself with these tips; Government IT systems in the hands of a single vendor puts agencies at risk; Apple says Safari protects your privacy. We fact-checked those claims; and Lawmakers look to clarify electronic medical device use in secure facilities.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, August 2, 2024 – Four highlights from this week: How To Check Whether You’re Chatting With a Real Person or AI; Here is another reason why you should never click on ads to download software; New Federal Ruling Prohibits Warrantless Phone Searches by Border Agents; and About Chrome’s “These extensions may soon no longer be supported” message.

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