prior probability

Check out this pithy report by Rob Beschizza describing an amazing AI program called Confusing Coleopterists. In brief, this program was trained on illustrations of extant beetles from existing zoological textbooks. In the words of Mr Beschizza: “The extreme formality of this art genre, and its placement within the public domain, makes it uniquely apt to the medium of generative adversarial networks ….” (Hat tip: Cliff Pickover.) Note: Imagine unleashing a “positivist AI” on the entire U.S. Code or the Supreme Court reporter. What new laws or SCOTUS decisions would it generate?

To start off the new year on the right track, I have assembled below, for your reading pleasure and intellectual stimulation, my favorite “best of” end-of-year reflections and collection of ideas from 2019. Enjoy!

1. Larry Solum: Downloads of the year 2019 (via Legal Theory Blog).

2. Rex Storgatz: best list of lists (via Twitter).

3. Alex Tabarrok: Most popular posts of 2019 (via Marginal Revolution).

4. Dan Wang: 2019 letter (via Dan Wang’s website).

5. Tom Whitwell: 52 things I learned in 2019 (via Medium).

This epic “rap battle of ideas” begins at 1’29”; enjoy!

In addition to my teaching duties and my duties as editor of The Pegasus Review (my home institution’s undergraduate research journal), I published the following scholarly papers on various areas of the law, including copyrights (paper #1 below), judicial decision-making (#2), contract negotiations (#3), constitutional law (#4), and stare decisis (#5). Here is a comprehensive compilation of my 2019 papers:

1. Of Coase and Copyrights: The Law and Economics of Literary Fan Art in The NYU Journal of Intellectual Property & Entertainment Law (forthcoming). I revisit Hemingway’s classic novella The Old Man and the Sea to illustrate the problem of “literary fan art.”
2. The Case for Bayesian Judges in The Journal of Law/Journal of Legal Metrics. Although this paper is pretty short by law review standards (only 8 pages), here is an even shorter version, which I posted to the online Journal of Brief Ideas.
3. So Long Suckers: Bargaining and Betrayal in Breaking Bad in The Journal of Strategic Contracting and Negotiation. If you liked the TV series “Breaking Bad,” I think you will like this paper.
4. Domestic Constitutional Violence in The University of Arkansas Little Rock Law Review. I discuss whether President Eisenhower exceeded his constitutional powers when he ordered the use of force to resolve the Little Rock Crisis of 1957.
5. Bitcoin, the Commerce Clause, and Bayesian Stare Decisis in The Chapman Law Review. In this work I present a Bayesian approach to illuminate the common law doctrine of stare decisis.

I also discussed the problem of illicit promises with Brian Frye on his Ipse Dixit podcast (see here), spoke about several recent U.S. Supreme Court cases involving Puerto Rico at a Florida Bar-approved CLE workshop (here), and updated my intellectual autobiography, which is now titled Life, Love, and Law: Confessions of a Cuban-American Law Professor (unpublished manuscript). Now, back to work fun …

Artist credit: Suzan Charlton

This prizewinning chess problem by Paul Bekkelund first appeared in the Norwegian chess magazine Sjakk-Nytt circa 1947 (hat tip: Cliff Pickover).

Yes! “The Elements of AI” is a series of free online courses (all of which are available here) created by the University of Helsinki and Reaktor. According to the official website for the Elements of AI, these courses combine theory with practical exercises and are designed “to encourage as broad a group of people as possible to learn what AI is, what can (and can’t) be done with AI, and how to start creating AI methods.” More details here, via James Vincent (The Verge).

Happy birthday, my dearest Sydjia!

[Review of “Jerks, zombie robots, and other philosophical misadventures” (MIT Press, 2019) by Eric Schwitzgebel.]

Professor Schwitzgebel’s beautiful new book (pictured below and available here via the MIT Press) consists of 58 short philosophical reflections. Like a modern-day Montaigne, Schwitzgebel reflects on and ruminates over a wide variety of eclectic topics in no particular order. He concedes in his preface (p. 3) the lack of a unifying or overarching theme; instead, the chapters are organized in five parts as follows (note: all page and chapter numbers refer to the Dec. 5, 2018 draft of Schwitzgebel’s book):

1. Jerks and excuses (chs. 1-13),
2. Cute AI and zombie robots (chs. 14-23),
3. Regrets and birthday cake (chs. 24-36),
4. Cosmic freaks (chs. 37-45), and
5. Kant versus the philosopher of hair (chs. 46-58).

In place of a comprehensive review, then, I will select my favorite chapter from each part of the book, and I will then review, in reverse order, only those five chapters in the hopes of persuading you to read the entire tome for yourself. So, without further ado, let’s jump right in … Continue reading →