Okay, There’s An App For That. Why? Ho boy. The Iowa Caucuses were…they happened. And they happened in a way that was both completely unprecedented and utterly, exhaustingly predictable. It’s a story line that’s becoming, frankly, a little boring: people use old process, someone decides that an app (or AI) will be better, lots of… Read More
When you’re a lawyer and you write about truth, you’re basically asking to be insulted because….you know….you’re a lawyer. It’s true, some of my fellow legal professionals have occasionally had a less than intimate connection with the truth, but, in general, even the best lawyers squint their eyes and look wary when someone talks about… Read More
You may recall that we made some predictions way back in January about what would happen in privacy, privacy law, and data partnerships over the course of 2019. Well, we believe in accountability, and so it’s time to check out how well we did. There’s a reason that most people don’t reflect on their New… Read More
There have been dozens of articles and news pieces about the need for “ethics in AI” or “ethical AI.” This (apparently brand new) issue arises from a number of causes, including public concern over facial recognition, the use of automated decisionmaking, and the ongoing public fascination with the darker side of artificial intelligence (see: Black… Read More
If we’ve had this happen once, it’s happened several dozen times. We’ll be discussing our book, or our practice, or how we approach privacy issues, and someone will say something like “Yes, well, you know, data is the new x.” And x can be anything. Oil, money, gold, papayas, whatever. The analogy is, essentially, that… Read More
The Boston Dynamics “dogs” have become something of an inside joke around here: any time we want to suggest that an idea, project, or new technology might have worrisome long-term implications, the robotic canines come up in conversation. Much of it has to do with their somewhat surreal, uncanny valley look, something familiar enough to… Read More
We’re starting something new, a weekly collection of some of the stories that we saw or found interesting but, for some reason, didn’t have time to address meaningfully (by which we mean throw as many gifs at as possible). This week is heavy on government action, which is a good indication of the trends we’re… Read More
Last week, we had the chance to attend Cardlinx’s forum in San Francisco, one of the four or so they host worldwide every year. Cardlinx is an industry association for merchants, credit card issuers, and rewards/loyalty programs, with an eye towards establishing industry standards for “mobile payments, in-store offers, card-linking” and other technology tied to… Read More
Privacy is an interesting concept, one that both intrigues and baffles us, teasing us with seemingly unanswerable questions. What does it mean to have privacy, or is it even a commodity capable of possession? Is it simply the “right to be let alone,” as Warren and Brandeis wrote in their famous Harvard Law Review Article… Read More
Now that it’s January and everyone is finally returning to the reality where things don’t always taste like peppermint or eggnog (or both, which is just….no), it’s a good time to think about how you’re going to approach 2019. This time of year is rife with predictions and, more often, guesses about what privacy, tech,… Read More
The demonstration of Google Duplex has both stunned and terrified the world. AI can do that. For some legal insights into this, check out Jay Ward’s discussion on his blog post here. If you haven’t watched the video yet, its worth the few minutes to understand what all the commotion is about. We play the… Read More
As we roll into the final two weeks of our countdown, we’re going to take something of a step back and look at issues more broadly. Yesterday, we discussed Google’s AI, and how we’re all going to be living in the Duplex, as it were. I am (clearly) pretty hung up on this, and have… Read More
Machine learning and artificial intelligence are the “it” buzzwords of mid-2018, and even after our short attention spans turn to something else, the concepts behind the words will continue to evolve. Everyone talks about Skynet and the inevitable rise of our robot overlords, and most of the time they’re joking (other than when they show our friends the Boston… Read More
Given my practice, it probably isn’t surprising that I hear data and technology related buzzwords all the time, and often they’re just strung together in an incoherent jumble. “Blockchain crypto machine learning AI alakazam.” Usually this jumble is followed by a statement like “it’s changing the world, man,” at which point I always know that… Read More