The UK and France’s response to the Grok deepfake case suggests that effective AI regulation may not come from comprehensive AI-specific frameworks, but from the proper application of existing harm-based approaches to new capabilities, writes @ignaciocofone.bsky.social:

Can’t wait to read this! For our part the @lco-cdo.bsky.social 2024 Consumer Protection Project recommended Ontario regulate consumer notice to include “market contexts” - plain language descriptions of systems & real risks ie “structural uncertainties.” See p 33-36: www.lco-cdo.org/wp-content/u...

Happy to share “The Privacy Paradox is a Misnomer: Data Under Structural Uncertainty” (GTLJ 2026) which empirically shows uncertainty about downstream data uses and consequences, rather than unstable or contradictory preferences, drives the so-called privacy paradox papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

ISP Fellow @ignaciocofone.bsky.social publishes in Iowa Law Review about "Taxonomizing Synthetic Data for Law" papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Norway’s Court of Appeal just upheld the historic fine against Grindr for (unlawful) sharing its users data with third parties. It’s an important step in considering inferences personal data (app-level identifiers as processing that reveals sexual orientation) www.datatilsynet.no/contentasset...

Happy to share our new piece with Katherine Strandburg & Nicholas Tilmes, “Taxonomizing Synthetic Data for Law.” It engages Gal & Lynskey’s excellent article & centers the role of ground-truth assumptions. The key q is how creation methods encode claims about the world ssrn.com/abstract=555...

As many know, @bjard.bsky.social and I have been drafting a Technology Law coursebook for a few years. We've used it to teach classes at three institutions, including Yale Law School, and others have used chapters in their techlaw classes. We're excited to share the current version more broadly!

Always read @ignaciocofone.bsky.social, including accidental legal history.

Glad to see this chapter published. I always found history of law quite interesting, and I never thought I would accidentally do it by writing in 2023-2024 a chapter focused on two now dead pieces of legislation! academic.oup.com/edited-volum...

What a nice surprise to find this review of The Privacy Fallacy in the Society for Technical Communication by Donald Riccomini. Thankful to the reviewer for engaging the book and the claim that we need a new type of accountability www.jstor.org/stable/27373...

My article "Protecting Consumers in a Post-Consent World," about how we can broaden antitrust and consumer protection to deal with the fact that we have abandoned notice and consent in contract law, is now published in the Stanford Law Review Online. www.stanfordlawreview.org/online/prote...

New op-ed: Many users were distraught over OpenAI’s shift from GPT-4o to GPT-5, describing the change as “losing a friend” or a “therapist.” The enormous online reaction shows that, when language models sound convincingly human, people start to forget they aren't.

Big thank you to @frankpasquale.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy for his generous review of The Privacy Fallacy in the Journal of Law & Political Economy. He lays out the difficult questions involved in valuing harm & distributing compensation, in which LPE can play a role escholarship.org/uc/item/4jz9...

I'm delighted to share that my article, AI and Doctrinal Collapse, is forthcoming in Stanford Law Review! Draft at papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.....

🎉 We are delighted to announce that Lionel Smith, Professor of Comparative Law at the University of Oxford, has been elected a Fellow of the British Academy 👏 He joins a community of over 1,800 scholars who share a commitment to advancing the humanities and social sciences. 👇 shorturl.at/3Bkyg

I often think of this intentional stylistic choice as the opposite of Madeleine Elish’s “moral crumple zone” papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Grateful to Christopher D’Souza for his thoughtful review of The Privacy Fallacy in the Canadian Journal of Law & Technology. He that our privacy regime is, as he says,“not only outdated, but untenable” in the face of current data practices.

Check out recorded talks from our Law & Tech Speaker Series: lnkd.in/eBZ2prw7 In “Why AI Requires Rebuilding Privacy Law”, Prof. @ignaciocofone.bsky.social explains why AI demands shifting privacy law from individual control to harm prevention. 👉 www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsQV...

New draft from me, “Privacy and Disinformation,” on why privacy law, not speech or economic regulation, is the best path forward for fighting social media disinformation. Read the draft here (and later finalized in UC Law Journal): papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

What an amazing resource by @daniel-solove.bsky.social. A history of privacy books. Makes a perfect summer reading list. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Helpful article for this, @thomaskadri.bsky.social's Platforms as Blackacres www.uclalawreview.org/platforms-as...

In this essay, @daniel-solove.bsky.social discusses 400+ privacy books over the past 70+ years papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

The EU AI Act establishes a different right to explanation of an AI system's decisions than the GDPR: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... (by Kaminski & Malgieri)

ICYMI: We Robot 2025 has a new permanent online home @windsorlaw.bsky.social, along with 2 exciting updates: 🤖 Video links are now included for each of our panels. Revisit or check out the conversation if you couldn't join us in person. 🤖 And (see next post) 1/3 www.uwindsor.ca/law/3450/wer...

Thank you!!

Glad you liked the talk! There's a forthcoming paper with Katherine Strandburg from NYU on this project and I'd be happy to send it if interested

We used to talk about how, and not whether, to regulate AI bias/discrimination. "But those conversations are becoming increasingly difficult to have" www.politico.com/newsletters/...

Earlier this year, the Balkinization blog held a symposium on @ignaciocofone.bsky.social's book “The Privacy Fallacy: Harm and Power in the Information Economy.” In response to the comments, Ignacio, one of our Advisory Board members, authored a two-part piece on the Balkinization site.

"UK creating ‘murder prediction’ tool to identify people most likely to kill" www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025... - as Yuki Matsumi and I argue in our article The Prediction Society, such tools are deeply problematic ssrn.com/abstract=445...

This week’s Law & Tech Talk examined “Why AI Requires Rebuilding Privacy Law.” Thank you to @ignaciocofone.bsky.social for a magnificent presentation!

So excited to have @ignaciocofone.bsky.social (Faculty of Law, University of Oxford & Institute for Ethics in AI) talk to us tomorrow about: "Why AI Requires Rebuilding Privacy Law" Tuesday, April 8, 2025 - 12:10PM-1:30PM - SLB 128 DM for zoom details Cosponsored by @YJoLT

#WeRobot2025 @caryscraig.bsky.social starts by summing up @ignaciocofone.bsky.social's excellent paper, about how the "trade-off" btwn fairness and accuracy in algorithmic decision-making is a convenient false dichotomy that excuses accountability for programs that reinforce systemic discrimination

New paper: "The Overstated Cost of AI Fairness in Criminal Justice" is forthcoming in the Indiana Law Journal. We push back against the common idea in criminal justice that fairness constraints in recidivism prediction reduce predictive accuracy & impose social costs papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

The application is open until Friday next week for anyone who might be interested my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

Another class action was (correctly) considered ascertainable based on a common privacy loss when the statute allowed for it.

Same topic here: Meta mixes description of ad strategy with how much personal data it collects. tobin.yale.edu/research/met...

It's not even commoditization: "Consent or pay" is a trap because paying to avoid ads does nothing for people's privacy theconversation.com/meta-chargin...

Really grateful to the Université de Montréal for organizing this roundtable on The Privacy Fallacy and to @penney.bsky.social @elanazeide.bsky.social @stzeitouni.bsky.social @cehaupt.bsky.social Nicolas Vermeys Pierre-Luc Deziel & Neil Richards for joining and sharing their fabulous interventions

One of the more hopeful things I have the privilege of doing right now is organizing to bring wonderful people together from across multiple continents to talk critically about the intersection of law and robots (and AI). Register now. Just over 3 weeks until We Robot 2025!! www.werobot2025.ca

Thank you Legal4Tech for having me over at the podcast to chat with you about The Privacy Fallacy. It was a fun conversation! open.spotify.com/episode/0LFa...

ISP affiliated fellow @ignaciocofone.bsky.social writes in #Balkinization AI, Privacy, and the Politics of Accountability”, Balkinization blog (15 February 2025): Part 1 balkin.blogspot.com/2025/02/ai-p... Part 2 balkin.blogspot.com/2025/02/ai-p...

Here's the link with the details and how to apply for anyone who might be interested: my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

At the Institute for Ethics in AI, we’re looking to hire a postdoc fellow in law working on AI ​law/regulation together with the fabulous Oriel College, starting ​this fall (2-3 ys). Oxford will announce the details in the coming weeks but please share with people who might be interested

"The Consent Illusion" (2023): This illustrates how consent is often obtained through complex and lengthy privacy policies, which users may not fully read or understand. This practice undermines genuine consent and affects how personal data is used. URL: www.cambridge.org/core/books/p...

Nine brilliant scholars (links below) wrote about The Privacy Fallacy in a symposium on Balkinization, & one couldn’t have asked for a sharper, more thoughtful engagement. The responses challenge, expand & improve the arguments pushing forward the conversation on privacy, power, and AI governance 1/

Such a treat to have been invited to join this stellar group to discuss @ignaciocofone.bsky.social’s outstanding @cambridgeup.bsky.social book! The variety of angles in this symposium illustrates the breadth and depth of his contribution in The Privacy Fallacy. @ox.ac.uk @yaleisp.bsky.social

WeRobot registration is open! The agenda is full of great tech and robotics scholars w/ Canadian representation from @kristenthomasen.bsky.social, @teresascassa.bsky.social, @jenraso.bsky.social, @katieszi.bsky.social, Marina Pavlovic, @sonialawprof.bsky.social, @ignaciocofone.bsky.social and more!

The Paris AI summit aimed to establish principles for AI governance but was overshadowed by geopolitical divisions that raise diff questions about market power, speech, labor, and sustainability—concerns that the Trump administration purports to address www.oxford-aiethics.ox.ac.uk/blog/paris-a...

This is such a good example of automation bias (the tendency to overvalue / defer to algorithmic recommendations without interrogating their reliability & limitations). Officers accepting an AI’s conclusions as sufficient justification means that, instead of treating them as a piece of evidence...

Looking forward to talking about The Privacy Fallacy at the @nyulaw Innovation Policy Colloquium today. Join us if you're in New York and wonder "what do we do about all the AI inferences?" www.law.nyu.edu/events/innov...