Category «Legal Technology»

The ‘publish or perish’ mentality is fuelling research paper retractions – and undermining science

The “publish or perish” paradigm is increasingly antithetical to the process of scientists making important discoveries, both big and small, and then typically publishing their findings in scientific journals for others to read. This sharing of knowledge helps to advance science: it can, in turn, lead to more important discoveries. But published research papers can be retracted if there is an issue with their accuracy or integrity. And, according to research shared by Nham Tran, in recent years, the number of retractions has been rising sharply. For example, in 2023 more than 10,000 research papers were retracted globally. This marked a new record, and in combination with AI’s impact on scientific publishing, has created a volatile environment in which scholarly literature is increasingly challenged for data accuracy.

Subjects: Education, KM

How to Sign Up for Local Emergency Alerts Before Natural Disasters Strike

Natural disasters have affected nearly 90 percent of U.S. counties since 2013, and while many households know about preparing emergency kits, a recent FEMA survey found a large drop in how many people are signed up to receive emergency alerts and warnings. Early warning systems save lives during disasters. To ensure you can receive these warnings via your phone, text, or email, Natasha Uzcátegui-Liggett recommends and walks you through turning on your phone’s alerts and signing up for your local government’s emergency alert system.

Subjects: Disaster Planning

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, September 21, 2024

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: FTC Says Social Media Platforms Engage in ‘Vast Surveillance’ of Users; AI voices are officially too realistic; Tor Network Denies Report That ‘Anonymity Is Completely Canceled’; ‘Terrorgram’ Charges Show US Has Had Tools to Crack Down on Far-Right Terrorism All Along; and DuckDuckGo Joins AI Chat, Promises Enhanced Anonymity.

Subjects: AI, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Internet Trends, Privacy, Search Engines, Search Strategies, Social Media, Spyware, Technology Trends

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, September 14, 2024

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: Why digital identity should be a priority for the next president; Google, TSA Testing New “ID Pass” in Wallet, Created by Scanning Passport; Google sued over AI-driven tool for customer service call review; and Reolink’s battery-powered security camera can record for days without subscription fees; and This Tool Finds Matching Usernames Across 400 Social Media Networks.

Subjects: AI, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Financial System, Law Library Management, Privacy, Search Engines, Search Strategies

LLRX August 2024 Issue

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 …

Subjects: KM

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.

Subjects: Education, KM

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.

Subjects: AI, Education, Law Librarians, Legal Education, Legal Profession, Legal Research, Legal Research Training

ChatGPT 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.

Subjects: AI, Big Data, Information Management, Internet Resources, KM, Legal Research, Search Engines, Technology Trends

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.

Subjects: AI, Cybersecurity, Law Firm Marketing, Legal Profession, Legal Research, Legal Technology

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.

Subjects: AI, Big Data, PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), Privacy