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Rebecca Crootof @crootof.bsky.social · 7d

Chapter 3 is up!

Rebecca Crootof @crootof.bsky.social · 7d

Chapter 3 discusses the three tech-fostered social impacts (artifacts, activities, actors), provides suggestions for identifying legally influential ones (heavily informed by my DARPA work), and notes the regulatory impact of difference-in-degree/kind debates.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Technology Law Chapter 3: Social Impacts

Based on years of experience teaching the subject, we have produced a first draft of a “Technology Law” coursebook. It teases out fundamental concepts, in

papers.ssrn.com

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Rebecca Crootof @crootof.bsky.social · 7d

Chapter 3 discusses the three tech-fostered social impacts (artifacts, activities, actors), provides suggestions for identifying legally influential ones (heavily informed by my DARPA work), and notes the regulatory impact of difference-in-degree/kind debates.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Technology Law Chapter 3: Social Impacts

Based on years of experience teaching the subject, we have produced a first draft of a “Technology Law” coursebook. It teases out fundamental concepts, in

papers.ssrn.com

1

Reposted by Rebecca Crootof

Micah @rincewind.run · 7d

one of the most important conversations tech companies should have about every new feature and product is "how can this be abused" and in OpenAI's case they apparently decided to make that the selling point for their new app

this is a million lawsuits and ruined lives waiting to happen

Drew Harwell @drewharwell.com · 8d

OpenAI employees are very excited about how well their new AI tool can create fake videos of people doing crimes and have definitely thought through all the implications of this

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Reposted by Rebecca Crootof

Lee Kovarsky @kovarsky.bsky.social · 7d

Find someone to hate the way Eliot Cohen hates Pete Hegseth. OMFG

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

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Reposted by Rebecca Crootof

Graham Webster @gwbstr.com · 8d

I’ve had experience with a lot more generals and admirals than the average left-leaning critic of the military-industrial complex and 21st century wars. There’s an occasional jerk or narcissist, but generally they are thoughtful, committed, allergic to bullshit. Hope my sample is representative.

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Reposted by Rebecca Crootof

Michael Froomkin @mfroomkin.bsky.social · 9d

Waymo dodges a ticket b/c tickets lack a field for robot drivers. Imagine if it got points for a moving violation, and every cars' points went to one AI's license, those could add up pretty quickly.

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

California police stumped after trying to ticket driverless car for illegal U-turn

San Bruno officers pull over Waymo but say a ticket wasn’t issued, as ‘our citation books don’t have a box for “robot”’

www.theguardian.com

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Rebecca Crootof @crootof.bsky.social · 12d

Been looking forward to reading this for a while!

Ryan Calo @rcalo.bsky.social · 12d

Does your university have an account with Oxford Academic? If so, you can read the entirety of my book Law and Technology: A Methodical Approach here! academic.oup.com/book/61252

Validate User

academic.oup.com

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Reposted by Rebecca Crootof

Jesse Walker @notjessewalker.bsky.social · 15d

"The Internet Archive isn't scraped by AI—they prohibit the bots from training on their massive trove of data. So from the perspective of AI, the Internet Archive simply does not exist."

Is AI Hiding Your Past Publications? A Warning for Journalists, Authors and Scholars

We all know Google search is terrible now. But AI might be worse - it might be actively hiding your past published work by pretending no public link exists on the web.

linttrapofhistory.substack.com

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Reposted by Rebecca Crootof

Django Wexler @djangowexler.bsky.social · 17d

I like this -- they fed AITA posts where the humans voted "asshole" to LLMs and found that the bots would almost always tell you that you're not an asshole. ^^; No wonder they're so popular!

www.businessinsider.com/reddit-aita-...

Am I the jerk? Redditors say yes — but ChatGPT and other bots say no.

ChatGPT and other AI bots tell posters from Reddit's "AITA" subreddit that, actually, they're not the jerks. Should we believe it?

www.businessinsider.com

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Reposted by Rebecca Crootof

The Information Society Project at Yale Law School @yaleisp.bsky.social · 22d

🚨 New Publication 🚨

ISP Fellows Rebecca Crootof & @bjard.bsky.social have launched their Technology Law coursebook!

First chapters now live:
📑 TOC: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

📘 Ch.1: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

📘 Ch.2: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

New chapters drop twice monthly.

Technology Law Front Matter

Based on years of experience teaching the subject, we have produced a first draft of a “Technology Law” coursebook. It teases out fundamental concept

papers.ssrn.com

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Rebecca Crootof @crootof.bsky.social · 19d

Nightstand Pile Files: Re-reading @jackbalkin.bsky.social's "Old School / New-School Speech Regulation," on governments' various techniques for controlling and surveilling speech.

I read it nearly every year. And every year it feels more and more relevant.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

papers.ssrn.com

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Rebecca Crootof @crootof.bsky.social · 23d

Chapter 2 is up!

Rebecca Crootof @crootof.bsky.social · 23d

The prior chapter introduced our methodology for resolving techlaw uncertainties; Chapter 2 delineates what techlaw uncertainties actually are. In brief, they many manifest as application uncertainties, normative uncertainties, and institutional uncertainties.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Technology Law Chapter 2: Legal Uncertainties

Based on years of experience teaching the subject, we have produced a first draft of a “Technology Law” coursebook. It teases out fundamental concepts, intro

papers.ssrn.com

2

Rebecca Crootof @crootof.bsky.social · 23d

The prior chapter introduced our methodology for resolving techlaw uncertainties; Chapter 2 delineates what techlaw uncertainties actually are. In brief, they many manifest as application uncertainties, normative uncertainties, and institutional uncertainties.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Technology Law Chapter 2: Legal Uncertainties

Based on years of experience teaching the subject, we have produced a first draft of a “Technology Law” coursebook. It teases out fundamental concepts, intro

papers.ssrn.com

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Reposted by Rebecca Crootof

Brian Finucane @bcfinucane.bsky.social · 27d

It has been 10 days now since the Trump administration conducted a lethal strike on a boat in the Caribbean.

In that time, the administration has not even attempted to present a legal justification for this premeditated killing of people outside of armed conflict.

Brian Finucane @bcfinucane.bsky.social · Sep 5

NEW

🧵The White House has now issued its first formal legal justification for the lethal attack on a vessel in the Caribbean.

This War Powers report to Congress is long on bluster and short on substance.

This letter does not adequately justify the premeditated killing of apparent civilians. 1/n

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Reposted by Rebecca Crootof

Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social · 27d

🧵 The summer of 2025 has been AI's "cruel summer"—wrongful deaths, dangerous therapy chatbots, medical misinformation, facial recognition failures. These aren't isolated glitches but predictable harms from systems deployed without adequate oversight. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

An ELSI for AI: Learning from genetics to govern algorithms

In the United States, the summer of 2025 will be remembered as artificial intelligence’s (AI’s) cruel summer—a season when the unheeded risks and dangers of AI became undeniably clear. Recent months h...

www.science.org

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Rebecca Crootof @crootof.bsky.social · 28d

Preordered, and can't wait to read!

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Rebecca Crootof @crootof.bsky.social · 28d

I'm particularly struck by Calo's celebration of what Julie Cohen terms law's "relentless pragmatism," which he argues is distinctive to law and may inform other disciplines. (This captures why I pursued a law degree instead of other postgrad options.)

As Calo summarizes, "Law is a useful science."

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Rebecca Crootof @crootof.bsky.social · 29d

Nightstand Pile Files: Re-reading @rcalo.bsky.social's excellent "The Scale and the Reactor," on what techlaw and STS scholars can learn from each other.

Aside from informative and prescriptive, it is jam packed with delightful phrasings and analogies.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

The Scale and the Reactor

The mainstream American legal academy, no less than American society as a whole, has struggled to understand and address new technology. Law professors are fina

papers.ssrn.com

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Rebecca Crootof @crootof.bsky.social · Sep 9

So we agree! :)

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Rebecca Crootof @crootof.bsky.social · Sep 8

We should talk!

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Reposted by Rebecca Crootof

The labor librarian @laborlibrarian.bsky.social · Sep 7

My school doesn’t offer a degree in Outlook, even though odds are very good that a majority of my students will be required to use it in their professional lives, and many of them will use it poorly/incorrectly.

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Reposted by Rebecca Crootof

BJ Ard @bjard.bsky.social · Sep 4

We’ll release new chapters biweekly with updates to our front matter and table of contents at docs.google.com/document/d/1....

Chapter 1 introduces our "techlaw uncertainties" approach at
docs.google.com/document/d/1....

We welcome your feedback!

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Reposted by Rebecca Crootof

BJ Ard @bjard.bsky.social · Sep 4

Second, I’m thrilled to share the first excerpts of the Technology Law coursebook I’m co-authoring with @crootof.bsky.social. We’ve built these materials across courses at three institutions, beginning with the seminar we taught with @jackbalkin.bsky.social at Yale Law School in 2016.

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Reposted by Rebecca Crootof

Evan Bernick, a finite mode with a smol hooman and a lorg floof @evanbernick.bsky.social · Sep 4

The United States has committed every moral atrocity that has ever been committed. I can’t prevent that. What I can do is say that it should not do so, and if it does so, we should call it what it is, condemn it, hold ppl accountable for it, and deprive them of power.

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Rebecca Crootof @crootof.bsky.social · Sep 2

Then the chapter which was probably the most difficult one to write, wherein we introduce the concept of "Technology Law"

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Technology Law Chapter One: Technology Law

Based on years of experience teaching the subject, we have produced a first draft of a “Technology Law” coursebook. It teases out fundamental concepts, intro

papers.ssrn.com

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