James Grimmelmann

@jtlg.bsky.social

5.4K followers 39 following 1.3K posts

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

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

Videos

Computer science 34%

Political science 21%

Posts Replies Media Videos

Reposted by James Grimmelmann

Simon Willison @simonwillison.net · 1d

I enjoyed this TikTok about procedural generation and AI in video games mainly for the line "there's so much to explore and nothing to find"
www.tiktok.com/@nobody.impo...

#worldbuilding #writing #videogames #ai

TikTok video by Felix Nolan

www.tiktok.com

Reposted by Rebecca Tushnet

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 1d

Today’s trade dress not-so-hypothetical

A stuffie labeled “chocolate” in the Nutella typeface

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 1d

Mad Anthony Lil Wayne

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 2d

Private ordering embraces a particularly stringent version of the harm principle.

NOTICE: Any behavior that endangers or interferes with another patron's safety or pleasure is strictly forbidden.

Reposted by James Grimmelmann

jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 2d

People assume my partner "does computers" for a job b/c I do. He has a job title that's confusing, but I tell people that he mostly "does spreadsheets."

This profile of him from the student newspaper is a great way to get to know a few neat things about him.

www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

On the Origin of James Poolner | Magazine | The Harvard Crimson

To students, however, Poolner is Harvard’s Program Coordinator for the Integrative Biology and Neuroscience Concentrations, a position he has officially held since 2000. Perhaps most famously, he is a...

www.thecrimson.com

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 4d

I have a new Jotwell review of Tejas N. Narechania & Scott Shenker's _How to Save the Internet_, a really nice law/CS collaboration on Internet architecture policy.

article: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
review: cyber.jotwell.com/the-edge-of-...

The Edge of Tomorrow - Technology Law

Tejas N. Narechania & Scott Shenker, How to Save the Internet, __ Berkeley Tech. L.J. __ (forthcoming), available at SSRN (Mar. 18, 2025).James GrimmelmannEvery time I teach Internet Law, I start by l...

cyber.jotwell.com

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 4d

Revisiting my taxonomy of personality types in the first Trump administration, I'm struck that:
(a) The douchebags have driven out the snowflakes and drones
(b) The ethnonationalist ideologues have driven out the globalist ones.

3d.laboratorium.net/2017-09-09-i...

Ideologues and Grifters, Douchebags and Snowflakes: A Theory of the Trump Administration

I’ve read a lot of confused takes trying trying to make sense of the Trump administration through a traditional left-right lens. I’m sure you have, too. They use words like “pivot” and “establishment”...

3d.laboratorium.net

Reposted by James Grimmelmann

Lizzie Kodpuak née Acid Lich (Gröbnerpilled era) @acidlich.bsky.social · 4d

The Z in dragon ball Z stands for the integers

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 4d

And no one seems to know that this is heaven
They say we only know it by and by
That someday all will be revealed
Well, here it is

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 4d

Invisible Monsters (1999)

Reposted by James Grimmelmann, Rebecca Tushnet, Richard Moorhead

michael veale @michae.lv · 5d

On AI’s ‘mediocrity trap’ — experiments indicates that while AI helps the less skilled make something passable, the highly skilled don’t use it to produce something better than they could have; they produce something ok, but lose motivation to make it great. www.jin-li.org/uploads/1/1/...

Reposted by Rosemary A. Joyce, James Grimmelmann, Jacob T. Levy , and 1 more Rosemary A. Joyce, James Grimmelmann, Jacob T. Levy, Abdel Halloway

andy™ @andylevy.net · 6d

i’m not sure how but this is real antipolygraph.org/blog/2025/10...

a photo of DHS acting Chief Security Officer whose name is Iwona B. Horyn

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 6d

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)

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 6d

Bad content drives out good.

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

AI Slop Recipes Are Taking Over the Internet — And Thanksgiving Dinner

Food bloggers see traffic dip as home cooks turn to AI, inspired by impossible pictures

www.bloomberg.com

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 7d

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.

Reposted by Rosemary A. Joyce, James Grimmelmann

Francis Wilkinson @franciswilkinson.bsky.social · 7d

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

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 7d

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

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 7d

Every law professor ever.

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 7d

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

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 7d

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.

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 9d

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

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 9d

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.)

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 11d

"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

Jason Scott @textfiles.com · 11d

Happy Amazing News Day

opensource.microsoft.com/blog/2025/11...

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 12d

Wittgenstein on writing: "Its object would be attained if there were one person who read it with understanding and to whom it afforded pleasure."

Hazel Anneke Dixon @hazelxd.bsky.social · 12d

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

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 12d

Leaning in to “Let’s just be assholes” ithacavoice.org/2025/11/feds...

Feds tell county to cease naturalization ceremonies - The Ithaca Voice

ITHACA, N.Y. — Tompkins County officials received a directive from federal immigration officials to cease all local naturalization ceremonies. Naturalization ceremonies are typically held throughout t...

ithacavoice.org

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 12d

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.

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 12d

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

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 12d

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.

Brad Heath @bradheath.bsky.social · 12d

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

Brad Heath @bradheath.bsky.social · 12d

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

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