Fastcase, an American-based provider of electronic versions of U.S. primary law (cases, statutes, regulations, court rules, and constitutions), has unveiled its list of Fastcase 50 winners for the year 2018.

“Created in 2011, each year the Fastcase 50 award honors a diverse group of lawyers, legal technologists, policymakers, judges, law librarians, bar association executives, and people from all walks of life. In many cases, honorees are well known, but in many others, the award recognizes people who have made important, but unheralded contributions.“

Simon Fodden, the founder of Slaw.ca, was recognized as one of the Fastcase 50 in . . . [more]

The American Bar Journal reports that some people are harassing their spouses by remote manipulation of smart home devices, like thermostats, TVs and the like – turning the heat way up, or off, turning TVs or radios on and off, etc.

Is this a problem in Canada? Is there a reason that the spouse left in the home can’t just turn off the devices, or the central control device like Alexa?

Would restraining orders need to deal with this kind of ‘contact’ or abuse expressly? . . . [more]

With Supreme Court Judge of the United States Anthony Kennedy announcing his retirement, there are a host of potential nominees. Included in this list is Justice Don Willet of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal. ABC News contends that some people are taking issue with his potential nomination because of his use of social media. It has been argued that social media use can reveal biases and detract from the perceived impartiality of the bench.

However, ABC News notes that “Legal scholars say there’s no legal provision prohibiting Supreme Court justices from sharing their opinions online or in speeches. The . . . [more]

The Guardian has an article about the number of businesses in the U.K. that are refusing to accept cash in payment, notably for food and drink, and services.

The article and the comments to it point out the difficulties such policies may cause for people who do not have or cannot get bank accounts – but also the benefit for the businesses, who do not have to keep or tally cash.

The comments in particular point out the privacy and control implications of having all one’s transactions recorded – and the data often sold – electronically.

Some other countries, notably . . . [more]

OK, I know … you don’t want to hear about how lawyers should learn how to program. And sure, many of you may not need to learn how to code. But with everything that’s bubbling up in and around the profession these days it might not hurt to at least consider familiarizing yourself with what goes on behind the scene.

If you find yourself agreeing with that premise, then you’ll find this nice short post on Programming Resources for Lawyers on the Ex Libris Juris blog useful. It’s brought to us by the folks at the Harris County Law Library . . . [more]

In the not too distant future…

“Hey Google, order me a pizza – the usual, but a large this time, and have it delivered.”

Google Duplex calls pizza place. Pizza place AI bot answers the phone. The bots talk to each other.

Robots make the pizza.

Pizza is loaded into an autonomous vehicle containing a pizza oven that cooks it on the way to me.

Autonomous vehicle texts me when 2 minutes away.

I meet it at the curb. It authenticates me using voice or facial recognition and gives me the pizza. . . . [more]

Law month, Google released new features for its paying customers of Gmail, including Gmail Confidential Mode. The initial announcement stated,

You will probably have heard that Google has developed a system by which a machine can make phone calls to humans, notably to make reservations for hotels and restaurants (and what more human an activity is there?) – and the machine, using AI, can sound remarkably human. Apparently we have here a device that passes the Turing test with flying colours.

Question: should it have to tell people it deals with that it is essentially a robot? A lot of people claim to be unhappy with the idea that they may deal with the machine and not know it’s . . . [more]

I’ve been out of the loop for a little while and just happened on EVA the free AI-based legal research tool that ROSS Intelligence made available earlier this year. ROSS CEO Andrew Arruda characterizes this “AI system” as ROSS’ new coworker.

Robert Ambrogi blogged about EVA’s unveilling in late January calling it a “brief analyzer.” He expanded on this description:

“…it is also a tool for checking the subsequent history of cited cases and determining if they are still good law, … [and it] also can be used to find other cases that are similar to a given case

In the “Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies: Criminological Highlights” published by the University of Toronto, the ability of complex algorithms to predict recidivism or re-offending while on pretrial release is discussed. In a study by Julia Dressel and Hany Farid, the researchers assessed the accuracy of algorithm based prediction system COMPAS.

They looked at data from 7,214 defendants in one county in Florida. They compared the predictions made by COMPAS to two other sources of predictions: (1) Ordinary statistical predictive models and (2) Intuitive predictions by ordinary people.

Dressel and Farid found that COMPAS’s prediction of recidivism (arrest within . . . [more]

The Guardian reports us that the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is close to adopting a new authentication standard that can replace passwords. This would be some kind of “who you are” (biometric) or “what you have” (token, phone to receive code) method of authentication, rather than a “what you know” password. (I suppose a code sent to your phone is what you know, but you know it only case by case, because you have another communications channel.)

Some web services already work this way, as the article notes – or does in special cases, as when one is logging . . . [more]

A common issue for new technology is the application of existing laws that were created before the new tech was contemplated. Examples include fintech (financial applications), fitness and health applications, and ridesharing services (such as Uber).

What is the issue?

Some activities and services are highly regulated. Financial services and the taxi industry are good examples. New entrants create innovative applications and services that compete with incumbents, but may or may not be regulated the same.

In some areas the entity may be regulated rather than the activity (often the case in fintech).

Laws sometimes prescribe a specific solution, rather . . . [more]