As the 2024 campaign cycle unfolds, campaign strategists, pollsters and political scientists have been closely watching independent voters. Professor of Political Science Julio Borquez addresses why it appears that independents are important – including to political science scholars like himself.
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. Five highlights from this post: Financial regulators have ‘insufficiently’ addressed hedge funds’ use of AI, report says; 2024 Conference on Artificial Intelligence & Financial Stability; Two AI Truths and a Lie; The Simple Macroeconomics of AI; and The rise of AI at JPMorgan Chase.
Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Five highlights from this week: Want free and anonymous access to AI chatbots? DuckDuckGo’s new tool is for you; Windows Recall is changing in 3 key aspects after user backslash; Harvard, MIT and Wharton research reveals pitfalls of relying on junior staff for AI training; AI in law enforcement is risky, but holds promise; and The NSA’s guide to keeping your phone and yourself safe.
The year 2023 witnessed an unprecedented escalation in ransomware attacks, affecting users from homeowners to critical infrastructure like healthcare, education, and government. With over 5,200 reported incidents—a 74% increase from the previous year—ransomware has not only intensified in frequency but also sophistication and financial demands, with total payments exceeding $1 billion. This surge highlights the value of data and the increasing likelihood that victims will pay ransoms, often facilitated by cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Cryptocurrencies have played a pervasive role in the rise in ransomware attacks due to their anonymity and ability to facilitate cross-border payments. Jawad Ramal explains how using cryptocurrencies to facilitate ransom payments offers complex challenges due to their high transaction costs and regulatory ambiguities that complicate compliance efforts. The pervasive role of cryptocurrencies in ransomware attacks underscores the necessity for multi-disciplinary legal professions that are capable of utilizing blockchain analytic tools, financial hedging techniques, and general knowledge of the evolving cryptocurrency space. Instituting safe harbor provisions would also ensure that victims do not face the threat of prosecution after making ransom payments.
Sarah Gotschall describes this deep dive into how AI is used to write law review articles, with illustrations that detail the complexity and limitations of the effort. Claude (aka the illustrious author Claudia Trey) penned a 77-page extensively footnoted law review article on SSRN entitled “Bloodlines Over Merits: Exposing the Discriminatory Impact of Legacy Preferences in College Admissions.” Though not setting the world on fire in the sense that the article is interesting or that anyone wants to read it, it showcases Claude’s abilities. Now, we all know that AI text generators can churn out an endless stream of words on just about any topic if you keep typing in the prompts. However, Claude can not only generate well-written text, but it can also provide footnotes to primary legal materials with minimal hallucination, setting it apart from other AI text generators such as ChatGPT-4. And, although Claude’s citations to other sources are generally not completely accurate, it is usually not too difficult to find the intended source or a similar one based on the information supplied.
Jordi Calvet-Bademunt and Jacob Mchangama are policy researchers who study free speech, as well as executive director and a research fellow at The Future of Free Speech, an independent, nonpartisan think tank based at Vanderbilt University. In a recent report, they found that generative AI has important shortcomings regarding freedom of expression and access to information.
Marcus P. Zillman’s guide is a selective listing of open Generative AI resources that includes current awareness reports, guides, research tools, resources and applications from the open metaverse and Chat GPT. These references include AI best practices to facilitate implementing AI technology in specific sectors and within critical areas that involve engaging subject matter. expertise to deliver internal and external client and customer services. The sources are the work of AI entrepreneurs and experts, consulting groups, government, academe, the evolving global AI sector, and informative cheat sheets, prompt guides and articles published on LinkedIn.
Jerry Lawson rhetorically asks Is anyone in the country better qualified than Renee Knake Jefferson to write about access to justice? Professor of Law at the University of Houston, co-reporter for the ABA Commission on the Future of Legal Services, and designated by the American Bar Association as a “Legal Rebel,” she has long been a thought leader in the quest to make legal help available to all, regardless of resources. Her new book, Law Democratized: A Blueprint for Solving the Justice Crisis, does not disappoint.
A conversation with web cartoonist Dorothy Gambrell on the curdled internet, labor, and how we became just numbers.
Investigative Reporter Tara García Mathewson discusses how the the tools that likely brought down Harvard president Claudine Gay are improperly used on students all the time.