James Grimmelmann
banner
jtlg.bsky.social
James Grimmelmann
@jtlg.bsky.social

I’m a professor at Cornell Tech and Cornell Law School.

One of "a number of very informative people." -WSJ

Computer science 34%
Political science 21%

I generally go with things that are so big as to be inescapable (Barbenheimer), old enough to be universally known (The Matrix), or things that I I know most of them won’t get without some Googling and I’m fine with that (Little Shop of Horrors)

I listened to The Division Bell again for the first time in many years, and for better and for worse, it sounds exactly like you'd expect from an album recorded on an opulent 1911 houseboat converted into a state-of-the-art studio: meticulous arrangements, impeccable production, god-awful prosody.
John Roberts has secured his place in history alongside Al Capone and Bernard Madoff. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/o...
Opinion | Why Trump Won’t Face Prosecution This Time Around
www.nytimes.com

Andrew Odlyzko in 2020, and newly relevant again today: “An Undertaking of Great Advantage, But Nobody to Know What It Is” was “apocryphal, but … only a slight embellishment of some documented cases.”

www-users.cse.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc...
www-users.cse.umn.edu

Every law professor ever.

See if you can spot the control questions and answer them “correctly.”

It’s hard for me to see how the organization can make the agreement confidential as against someone who declines to sign it and doesn’t already have an NDA in place with them.

Exactly. There are companies that I think blur this line much much more than Valve does here.

I think the idea of this prong the reverse: *players* invest based on an expectation of profit based on *Valve’s* efforts. (If I were pushing back on the argument I would say that the expectation isn’t reasonable in this gaming context.)

"No, this isn't a pediatric dental practice, this is a pedantic dental practice, as it clearly says on our website. Now, if you could tell me which tooth you're concerned about, using the ISO 3950 numbering system, we can proceed."

Reposted by James Grimmelmann

Wittgenstein on writing: "Its object would be attained if there were one person who read it with understanding and to whom it afforded pleasure."
Saw a post today that advised writers to stop writing as if a human will read it and start writing for an LLM that will be summarising.

As someone who really enjoyed trying to develop a peculiar but readable authorial voice, I find this incredibly depressing.

Reposted by James Grimmelmann

Schacht was just looping the d in mail fraud when Jim Troeltsch's pseudo-radio program, backed by its eustacian-crumpling operatic soundtrack, came over West House's E.T.A.-intercom speaker up over the classroom clock.

Fae licenses are open but non-free. They come with the most amazing and consequential conditions, and no remedial opportunity to cure violations.

If terms of service become binding on you when your regular browser transmits a specific HTTP message to a server, I don't see how you can get around that rule just because your browser has AI in it. In agency law terms, the AI browser has ostensible authority to bind you.
If Comet or one of the other AI browsers checks "I agree" on one of those click-wrap agreements, is there still a contract?

Reposted by James Grimmelmann

If Comet or one of the other AI browsers checks "I agree" on one of those click-wrap agreements, is there still a contract?

Recast a movie with the same actors playing their other famous characters.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula with …

Gary Oldman playing Dracula as Jackson Lamb
Winona Ryder playing Mina as Veronica Sawyer
Anthony Hopkins playing Van Helsing as Hannibal Lecter
Keanu Reeves playing Jonathan as Ted Logan

Reposted by James Grimmelmann

Saw a post today that advised writers to stop writing as if a human will read it and start writing for an LLM that will be summarising.

As someone who really enjoyed trying to develop a peculiar but readable authorial voice, I find this incredibly depressing.

Reposted by Rebecca Tushnet

Bad content drives out the Good Word.
AI slop now making up saccharine Bible verses that do not exist

I participated in a train station intercept survey.

a lesson, but not the only one

If this is like Cornell’s research ethics system, you may need to specify that you are lodging a “complaint” of “research misconduct” (the term of art under federal regulations). This makes it extremely hard for them to sweep it under the rug, because it triggers the obligation to investigate.

Call their advisor.

Reposted by James Grimmelmann

(eulogistically)
Tass Times... in Tonetown. Are you Ultratone? Or a total tourist?

Reposted by James Grimmelmann

why would i hate people for being of a different race, ethnicity, sexuality or gender than me when i can instead hate SHITTY SOFTWARE and the LAZY SHITASSES WHO MAKE IT

Bad content drives out good.

Reposted by James Grimmelmann

Stereogum says Google's switch to AI Overviews reduced its ad revenue by *70 percent* www.theverge.com/entertainmen...
Stereogum soldiers on in the era of streaming and AI
Stereogum Founder Scott Lapatine on the importance of independent media in the age of AI slop and algorithms.
www.theverge.com

I’ve done this, but (a) can I undo the updates Crossref already made, and (b) can I go upstream to tell Crossref to stop pushing OSF updates to my profile while allowing others?