Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery Since 2002

Category Archives: Internet

The Individualization of Responsibility – Masterclass in Deception

The Climate Historian: “…In the mid-20th century, as evidence mounted linking smoking to lung cancer, the tobacco industry didn’t just fight back—they mastered the art of deflection. Instead of outright denying the dangers, they funded research to stir doubt, muddying the scientific waters.In the 1950s, the Tobacco Institute launched its “health reassurance” campaigns. These campaigns… Continue Reading

You should be using an RSS reader

Pluralistic: “…RSS (one of those ancient internet acronyms with multiple definitions, including, but not limited to, “Really Simple Syndication”) is an invisible, automatic way for internet-connected systems to public “feeds.” For example, rather than reloading the Wired homepage every day and trying to figure out which stories are new (their layout makes this very hard… Continue Reading

How social media distorts perceptions of norms

Claire E. Robertson, Kareena S. del Rosario, Jay J. Van Bavel, Inside the funhouse mirror factory: How social media distorts perceptions of norms, Current Opinion in Psychology, Volume 60, 2024, 101918, ISSN 2352-250X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2024.101918.  “The current paper explains how modern technology interacts with human psychology to create a funhouse mirror version of social norms. We… Continue Reading

Law and Technological Innovations: Three Reasons to Pause

Smith, Michael L., (September 04, 2024). 12 Belmont Law Review (Forthcoming 2025), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4946479 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4946479 – “Faced with optimistic accounts of technological innovations, businesses, law firms, and governments face pressure to rush into adopting these technologies and enjoying the increased efficiency, reduced costs, and other benefits that are promised. This essay sets… Continue Reading

Google’s Illuminate PDFs to Podcasts

Joshua Kubicki – This video gives a quick overview of Google’s latest experimental tool called Illuminate, which transforms research papers into audio content. It’s similar to Google’s Notebook LM, but instead of turning documents into cheery upbeat podcast-like experience, it creates more of an audiobook or “micro-audiobook” for research papers. The video walks viewers through… Continue Reading

What If Google’s Biggest Problem Isn’t AI?

New York – Intelligencer [unpaywalled]: “Let’s say you represent the most powerful government on Earth and would like to convey some information to the citizens of your country in a moment of crisis. We’re talking pretty basic stuff: How to apply for federal assistance after a series of massive natural disasters, the general state of… Continue Reading