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Category Archives: Legal Research

The Dark World of Citation Cartels

The Chronicle of Higher Education [unpaywalled]: “In the complex landscape of modern academe, the maxim “publish or perish” has been gradually evolving into a different mantra: “Get cited or your career gets blighted.” Citations are the new academic currency, and careers now firmly depend on this form of scholarly recognition. In fact, citation has become… Continue Reading

What impact does exposure to workplace technologies have on workers’ quality of life?

“This briefing outlines new work that has been done for the Pissarides Review to improve our understanding of the effect that exposure to new workplace technologies is having on workers’ quality of life. Based on a survey of nearly 5000 UK workers, it has, for the first time, been done with reference to the most… Continue Reading

Harvey Eyes ‘All Sorts’ of Lawyers in AI Legal Hiring Spree

Bloomberg: Harvey, a generative artificial intelligence startup that quadrupled in value last year, has spent the first quarter of 2024 embarking on an expansion spree that shows no signs of slowing. “The privately held company, which has 82 employees, wants to double that number by year’s end, said its 29-year-old co-founder and CEO Winston Weinberg… Continue Reading

Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies

The New York Times – unpaywalled: “Kenn Dahl says he has always been a careful driver. The owner of a software company near Seattle, he drives a leased Chevrolet Bolt. He’s never been responsible for an accident. So Mr. Dahl, 65, was surprised in 2022 when the cost of his car insurance jumped by 21… Continue Reading

Understanding the Risks of Uploading Client Information to Generative AI Platforms

ABA: “Lawyers owe sacrosanct ethical and legal obligations to their clients. Among the most important of these include the duty to maintain client confidentiality, protect privileged client communications, and apprise the client of the risks and benefits of proposed legal strategies. A lawyer’s inadvertent breach of these duties may irreparably harm the client, stain the… Continue Reading

ABA Free Legal Answers

“The American Bar Association web program ABA Free Legal Answers, which gives income-eligible users the ability to pose civil legal questions to volunteer attorneys, has released a nationwide list of lawyers, law firms, corporate law departments, law schools and other legal organizations who in 2023 handled the most online questions. Launched in 2016, the program… Continue Reading

OpenAI’s GPT Is a Recruiter’s Dream Tool. Tests Show There’s Racial Bias

Bloomberg [unpaywalled] – “Recruiters are eager to use generative AI, but a Bloomberg experiment found bias against job candidates based on their names alone, Companies tend to hire the most at the start of the year, mainly because of hiring budgets that have been set and go into effect in the first quarter. “Everybody came… Continue Reading

House Committee Approves Bill Restricting Sales of Sensitive Data to Foreign Adversaries

EPIC: “March 7, 2024 the House Energy & Commerce Committee approved H.R. 7520, the Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act of 2024, sponsored by Representative Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) and Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA). The bill prohibits data brokers from selling, transferring, or providing access to Americans’ sensitive data to certain foreign adversaries… Continue Reading

Study finds that we could lose science if publishers go bankrupt

Ars Technica: “Back when scientific publications came in paper form, libraries played a key role in ensuring that knowledge didn’t disappear. Copies went out to so many libraries that any failure—a publisher going bankrupt, a library getting closed—wouldn’t put us at risk of losing information. But, as with anything else, scientific content has gone digital,… Continue Reading

AI mishaps are surging and now they’re being tracked like software bugs

The Register speaks to the folks behind the AI Incident Database: “Interview – False images of Donald Trump supported by made-up Black voters, middle-schoolers creating pornographic deepfakes of their female classmates, and Google’s Gemini chatbot failing to generate pictures of White people accurately. These are some of the latest disasters listed on the AI Incident… Continue Reading