A short little piece i had come out today on some of the social implications of the rise of pseudolaw, with (hopefully) a positive spin

It is frankly unbelievable that an org has to put this notice up about their resources. It must be maddening to have to devote staff resources to responding to emails, regardless of angry or polite tone, about non-existent materials.

The latest in the world of so obvious it didn’t need a study to establish it. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12...

UWA Law School is hiring! Lvl B is only open to applicants with working rights in #AUS. Applications close 3 December 2025. Start date negotiable. (I encourage #intLaw people to apply! Ping @anzsil.org) #jobs #jobFairy #academia #lecturer #higherEd external.jobs.uwa.edu.au/cw/en/job/52...

Utopia script bot … govt agency website revamp takes from 2017-25, costs nearly $100M and makes things worse than the previous website. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11...

Well, that’s a bit of an embarrassing error 😀

Not to mention the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, also reaching its 80th anniversary of commencement next year! For the IMTFE records in Australia, plus our own Aust war crimes trials, see my finding aid at the National Archives of Australia www.naa.gov.au/help-your-re...

Supreme Court of Western Australia has finally issued its guidelines to litigants and practitioners on the use of Gen AI. Very similar to the general principles approach in Vic/Qld with shades of NSW. It’s not a practice note. Nothing directed to judges, which is a shame. See my recent article.

Many many years ago I published this article on the perceptions, and fetishisation, of Japanese women over time. Plus ca meme, plus c’est meme chose. intersections.anu.edu.au/issue7/morri....

Remedies texts need urgent updating for 2026

Heads up research nerds; JSTOR is running a survey that includes questions about AI use in research and your perspective about the JSTOR database. Now would be a good time to let them know what you think about AI inclusion in teaching and research #academic #history #JSTOR #AI

HOLY. FUCK.

Hanging out at Murdoch Uni before a mtg and listening to two loud students discuss Gen AI. “I used it a bit but don’t want to jump in too far or I’ll never do my own work again”.

OMG, work laptop has updated and Copilot is everywhere trying to "help"! The standard instructions for turning Copilot off in Word by going to Options simply don't work, as there is no option for Copilot showing! The icon in the ribbon has no unable or turn off option! How tf do I get rid of this?!?

Back from long service leave and upon my desk the glory of the print version of my new article "Current Approaches to the Use of Generative AI in Australian Courts and Tribunals: Should Australian Judges have Guidelines Too?" anzlaw.thomsonreuters.com/Document/Ie5...

I wouldnt ordinarily rubbish another scholar’s publication but a 23 page article that claims to be a comprehensive literature review presenting a new and critical viewpoint on the IMTFE is ludicrous and that’s even before you get to the undergrad level of insight … oxfordre.com/internationa...

Baffles me why the ABC reports in this fashion of “serious issue occurring in one state of Australia”, when the issue is endemic and a risk to courts everywhere. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11...

Grace’s review is pure literary magic.

As a Curtin academic I make no comment at all on this, apart from suggesting that any Australian academic might want to compare their EBA wording with ours on workload parameters in light of this new FWC decision AGAINST Curtin. Remedy as yet unclear. www.fwc.gov.au/document-sea...

As a supervising attorney, I am here to tell young lawyers that AI is absolutely a threat to your career. I do not mean that it will replace you. I mean that if you use it, you increase the risk that another attorney will replace you when you are fired. www.reuters.com/sustainabili...

Got AI to fix it, did they? How many revisions will it take before “oversight failure” ceases to be accepted by the govt? Claw every dollar back and ban Deloitte from govt consulting and tenders. Better yet, sue them for breach of contract or prosecute them for fraud.

“Tech companies have pushed faulty Gen AI that cannot do what is claimed into every sector, boosted by media uncritically accepting hyped up claims of productivity, but really its employers to blame for AI workslop because they aren’t investing enough in it”. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Does your university have a contract with Grammarly? Write to the decision-maker asking if they think the university should be paying for a tool that is fast integrating features that can only be used for academic misconduct and cognitive offloading and request they drop the contract.

Recently gave a colleague feedback on a paper that was partly written with ChatGPT. What did I learn from this and how should we deal with cases like this? Here are some thoughts 🧵(1/x)

How we ‘fess up when we mess up shows who we are. Pay it all back Deloitte. And apologise. Give yrsrlf some procurement teeth Labor: the capability to ban for poor behaviour, commensurate with the misdemeanour, up to 5 yrs.

A striking thing about articles I’ve read claiming to “study the effects” of generative AI on student writing skills and consumption of information is that (1) they nearly always find the effects are negative and (2) most “conclusions” are still written assuming that we must use AI, for some reason.

You’re kidding us, right? Reporting on AI and not aware UNTIL NOW about Gen AI “hallucinations”? Is this what happens when you only read press releases from the AI boosters and don’t stop to think about any of their claims? www.smh.com.au/business/wor...

Isn’t it fascinating that whenever a data privacy breach happens, whether it’s uploading to ChatGPT or files mysteriously showing up in a bin, it’s always a “contractor” that’s to blame?

It should come with a ban on govt consultancy or tendering, not just a refund.

Doesn’t use my new article below but an interesting resd. My question to those thinking Gen AI will replace research skills is how do you think law students will understand the fundamentals of what legal research is, and requires, if reduced to simply prompt an AI. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10...

99.999999% of international law experts say that it is but ABC News by all means let’s “both sides this” by posing it as a question.

This is one of the lesser known (but tragic) consequences of Gen AI. It’s not just about theft of IP, which is usually mentioned, it’s about damage to the information infrastructure of underfunded archives, libraries and museums etc. with long term consequences for them and for researchers.

Notably blameshifting excuses given the level of professional guidance and media coverage about the hazards of Gen AI in legal work. More interesting: clear indicators that both Westlaw and Lexis AI legal research products, as already known, similarly “hallucinate”.

The Supreme Court of Qld has now issued a relevant practice note and updated Guidelines for Non-Lawyers. The practice note focuses on the practitioners’ duty to provide accurate information to the court, ie verification. It doesn’t seek to control the use of Gen AI itself.

My article “Current Approaches to the Use of Generative AI in Australian Courts and Tribunals: Should Australian Judges Have Guidelines Too?” is now out in the Journal of Judicial Administration! Short answer: yes. Slightly longer answer: nobody should be using it for legal research or writing.

The enormous State Library of QLD billboard that actually says very little.

If you’re in Brisbane or coming to Brisbane in the next few weeks, Afterglow in the City Botanic Gardens as a part of the Festival is great.

We were very pleased to get the news today that the Australian National Dictionary Centre will be saved, thanks to an anonymous donation and the halt on involuntary redundancies under the Renew ANU plan. We thank everyone for their generous support through these difficult times.

Two entirely different issues several generations apart, both requiring a warning.

A very good explainer by Carolyn Holbrook of the broader messy problems at the AWM.

The deep irony of WA’s parliamentary scrutiny committee for delegated legislation spending so much time agonising over cat regulations when it could not and did not scrutinise the hundreds of “rules” made under delegated legislative power during COVID. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09...

It feels tragic that virtually every point made about universities and their challenges by VC Medley of UniMelb in the UQ Macrossan Lecture of … wait for it … 1945 … could be written today, albeit in modern phrasing.

So the strong warning to lawyers about use of Gen AI without verification articulated in R (Ayinde) v London Borough of Haringey, Al-Haroun v Qatar National Bank QPSC [2025] EWHC 1383 is starting to play out.

Not that I didn’t know the International Military Tribunal for the Far East was never forecast to take so long but found two letters today in the Qld State Archives with President Webb confidently saying it’d all be over by July. July 1946. Also he enjoyed a luncheon with Gen MacArthur.

On the nostalgia walk of Brisbane this week. This is “The Mansions” where Sir William Flood Webb, Prez of the IMTFE, lived as a young man. Boarded up at present while yet another pair of skyscrapers is built. Hope renovation is on the horizon.

To sum up, War Memorial leadership doesn’t accept expert advice from its own senior historian and makes things worse. It’s not complicated. Just face up to your blunder about centring BRS in the Afghanistan story … /1 www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

I may or may not have heard a sitting High Court justice suggest it’d be fun to borrow a tank from the War Memorial.

Wtf can’t people write without presuming it’s always the same season at the same time everywhere in the world. Original author Adam “the correct date of my birthday is in Autumn”, not Jess who has posted this article.

This is beyond farcical. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...