Hilary J. Allen | Lightnews

Hilary J. Allen @profhilaryallen.bsky.social · 17h

I think there may have been a Jedi party at one point

Hilary J. Allen @profhilaryallen.bsky.social · 17h

It's obviously three furlongs divided by six kelvins

three men in military uniforms stand in front of a flag

ALT: three men in military uniforms stand in front of a flag

media.tenor.com

Hilary J. Allen @profhilaryallen.bsky.social · 17h

Did they tell you about how Australians elect Senators? With the world's largest piece of paper? www.sbs.com.au/news/article...

Australia has one of the biggest ballot papers in the world. Here's why

In past state and federal elections some ballots have measured over a metre long from the sheer number of candidates and parties running.

www.sbs.com.au

Hilary J. Allen @profhilaryallen.bsky.social · 18h

Silver linings...

Hilary J. Allen @profhilaryallen.bsky.social · 19h

If you use fealty to the crypto industry as your barometer to judge Dem politicians (and honestly, it’s a pretty solid barometer), Gillibrand is worse than Schumer.

If you want to see who else is in the industry’s pocket, check out:

www.standwithcrypto.org/politicians

Find out where politicians stand on crypto

Crypto drives American innovation. Keeping crypto in America means securing 4 million jobs over the next 7 years to increase economic mobility. Discover the politicians fighting to keep crypto in Amer...

www.standwithcrypto.org

Hilary J. Allen @profhilaryallen.bsky.social · 19h

Perhaps a controversial opinion, but while a lot of things would have been A LOT better under a Harris admin, I think tech policy might have been equally bad. Beware any politician with strong ties to Silicon Valley (and that includes Gavin Newsom)

Hilary J. Allen @profhilaryallen.bsky.social · 20h

Friendly amendment: have AI manage health insurance on the blockchain…

Hilary J. Allen @profhilaryallen.bsky.social · 21h

This is a good thread on narrative framing. How we talk about technology matters, particularly because hype is one of Silicon Valley’s most powerful weapons

Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 1d

Just read a talk announcement about "AI" and K-12 education that looked like it maybe, maybe embedded a critical perspective but was still dressed up in the language of AI hype, presupposing both job market & education "reshaped by AI".

🧵>>

Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 1d

Just read a talk announcement about "AI" and K-12 education that looked like it maybe, maybe embedded a critical perspective but was still dressed up in the language of AI hype, presupposing both job market & education "reshaped by AI".

🧵>>

Hilary J. Allen @profhilaryallen.bsky.social · 1d

Interesting article on how social media businesses are failing. Which is interesting context for Zuckerberg's palpable desperation for AI - and the Metaverse before it - to prop up Meta.

nymag.com/intelligence...

7 Reasons to Think Social Media Has Peaked

The platforms have big problems.

nymag.com

Hilary J. Allen @profhilaryallen.bsky.social · 1d

fintechdystopia.com/chapters/cha...

As I thought about this inevitability narrative, like Carrie Bradshaw, I couldn’t help but wonder: if technological progress were really so inevitable, should it really matter how lawmakers and regulators treat it? Marietje Schaake, formerly a Member of the European Parliament, tells a story about a dinner she once attended with top Silicon Valley figures. She describes how she was cornered and asked “did Europeans realize their tendency to overregulate was the reason why no equivalent of Silicon Valley existed there?” But isn’t that ultimately an admission that technological progress can be channeled and even stopped? The Silicon Valley folk treated this as an obvious failing on Europe’s part, but what if, to quote the movie War Games, “the only winning move is not to play”? What if Europe has in fact won by using law to hold some tech businesses back, protecting its citizens and letting other countries be the guinea pigs, ensuring that the worst of Silicon Valley’s pathologies haven’t taken root there? As technology scholars Greta Byrum and Ruha Benjamin have observed, sometimes the best outcomes (in terms of benefit for the broader public) are achieved with non-technological approaches and solutions. Has Europe won by using the law to preserve space for them?

Hilary J. Allen @profhilaryallen.bsky.social · 2d

After reading this obit, it's hard not to see parallels with the undeserved hagiographies of many of the Silicon Valley elite: "lucky men who seem to have bought into their own hype cycle"

(from fintechdystopia.com/chapters/cha...)

Hilary J. Allen @profhilaryallen.bsky.social · 3d

The line between bailouts and crony capitalism is looking awfully blurry…

utopia deferred @utopia-defer.red · 3d

hey guys isn't it weird how they're all saying this at the same time? ignore the fact that this is now happening with Tyler Cowen, an economist who sits at the center of a sprawling system of think tanks and policy "influencers" who have been laundered into DC with both Koch and SV VC money

Hilary J. Allen @profhilaryallen.bsky.social · 3d

fintechdystopia.com/chapters/cha...

Fintech Dystopia - Chapter 5

fintechdystopia.com

Hilary J. Allen @profhilaryallen.bsky.social · 3d

Yup: “Andreessen Horowitz said the quiet part out loud when they wrote to the U.S. Copyright Office that “the bottom line is this: imposing the cost of actual or potential copyright liability on the creators of AI models will either kill or significantly hamper their development.”

Hilary J. Allen @profhilaryallen.bsky.social · 3d

Can't emphasize enough how central Andreessen is to so much that is going wrong right now.

Here's the book length treatment fintechdystopia.com

Here are academic article versions illinoislawreview.org/print/vol-20...

southerncalifornialawreview.com/2025/07/05/f...

Also, why is his head cropped?

utopia deferred @utopia-defer.red · 3d

hey guys isn't it weird how they're all saying this at the same time? ignore the fact that this is now happening with Tyler Cowen, an economist who sits at the center of a sprawling system of think tanks and policy "influencers" who have been laundered into DC with both Koch and SV VC money

More Perfect Union
@MorePerfectUS
In a new podcast Sam Altman says: " When something gets sufficiently huge ... the federal government is kind of the insurer of last resort, as we've seen in various financial crises ... given the magnitude of what I expect AI's economic impact to look like, I do think the government ends up as the insurer of last resort."

A video still of Sam Altman sitting in a chair, talking into a mic next to Tyler Cowen

Hilary J. Allen @profhilaryallen.bsky.social · 5d

I told some of the story of Silicon Valley authoritarianism in Ch 7 of Fintech Dystopia (fintechdystopia.com/chapters/cha...), but @gilduran.com is the OG on this subject and really digs into the interconnections. His mapping of the "authoritarian stack" is really worth a look.

Hilary J. Allen @profhilaryallen.bsky.social · 5d

Kim Kardashian needs to read Fintech Dystopia:

fintechdystopia.com/chapters/cha...

It's possible, though, that bespoke legal services from humans will also end up going down the AI toilet if those human lawyers rely too heavily on GenAI tools – I guess that’s one way of leveling the playing field. Even when human lawyers edit AI output, it will be harder for them to find mistakes in something they didn’t produce than it would be to not make mistakes in something they wrote themselves. Back in the day when I was a practicing lawyer, I worked with a partner who liked to say with a twinkle in his eye, “we stick it to them in the contract definitions!”, knowing that the lawyers we were negotiating with would most likely miss any traps we laid there. But now it will be our own AI sticking it to us in our own contract definitions – and our research memos, and our legal briefs.

And sadly, there are lawyers out there who don’t even edit the AI output. There have been plenty of stories about judges upbraiding lawyers for including entirely made-up case citations in their briefs. The lawyers’ excuse? “The AI put them there” (and most judges have found that excuse about as convincing as the Canadian Civil Resolution Tribunal found Air Canada’s excuse). Even when judges aren’t yelling at them, it’s not clear that relying on lower quality AI-generated work will be profitable for lawyers in the long run. AI tools are expensive to create and run, and if the funding currently subsidizing the use of those tools goes poof, paying junior lawyers to do the low-level tasks may very well be the more cost-effective way to go – especially because low-level tasks are how the junior lawyers learn to be senior lawyers.

Hilary J. Allen @profhilaryallen.bsky.social · 7d

Silicon Valley is primarily in the narrative business.

fintechdystopia.com/chapters/cha...

Right now, the idea that AI is inevitable is pervasive and pernicious. I can’t tell you how many friends I’ve discussed AI problems with, only to have them shrug and say “yeah, that’s terrible, but it’s happening and there’s no stopping it.” But this book has made clear that technology does not spring forth, fully formed, from the technology gods. Technology is built and deployed by humans for their own purposes (usually to make money), and what those humans build and how they deploy it are affected by existing laws and how those laws are enforced. Strong enforcement of existing laws can constrain those humans – and new laws can too – if lawmakers, regulators, and courts have the will to reject the inevitability narrative.

Lawrence Solum @lsolum.bsky.social · 8d

Allen on Fintech and Techno-Solutionism

Hilary J. Allen (American University - Washington College of Law) has posted Fintech and Techno-Solutionism (98 Southern California Law Review 761 (2025)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Silicon Valley-style technological innovation is ill-suited to address…

Allen on Fintech and Techno-Solutionism

Hilary J. Allen (American University - Washington College of Law) has posted Fintech and Techno-Solutionism (98 Southern California Law Review 761 (2025)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Silicon Valley-style technological innovation is ill-suited to address complex problems like financial inclusion and concentrated market power, yet promises abound that "fintech" can fix them. This oversimplified reduction of complex structural problems into technological puzzles has been critiqued as "techno-solutionism," and it poses real dangers for public policy.

legaltheoryblog.com

Hilary J. Allen @profhilaryallen.bsky.social · 11d

This reminds me a bit of the distinction the crypto industry is always trying to draw between “bad” crypto (fraud, scams, money laundering) and “good” crypto (gambling). Both are bad, even if one is less so.

Veena Dubal @veenadubal.bsky.social · 11d

“Many people invoke a distinction between illicit uses of A.I. (such as the composition of entire drafts) and innocent auxiliary functions — outlining, for instance. But it is these seemingly benign functions that are the most pernicious for developing minds.”

Hilary J. Allen @profhilaryallen.bsky.social · 11d

With plenty of signs already flashing “warning, financial crisis ahead!” this is not the time to make financial regulatory oversight worse…

graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 12d

The @federalreserve.gov is expecting to cut about 30% of its workforce dedicated to bank supervision and regulation by the end of 2026.

This is in addition to its broader move to weaken the substantive regulations that apply to the banking industry.
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Fed’s Bowman Moves to Reduce Bank-Supervision Unit By About 30%

The Federal Reserve’s top bank cop announced plans to reorganize the agency’s supervision and regulation division and shrink the unit’s staff by roughly 30%.

www.bloomberg.com

Veena Dubal @veenadubal.bsky.social · 11d

“Many people invoke a distinction between illicit uses of A.I. (such as the composition of entire drafts) and innocent auxiliary functions — outlining, for instance. But it is these seemingly benign functions that are the most pernicious for developing minds.”

graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 12d

The @federalreserve.gov is expecting to cut about 30% of its workforce dedicated to bank supervision and regulation by the end of 2026.

This is in addition to its broader move to weaken the substantive regulations that apply to the banking industry.
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Fed’s Bowman Moves to Reduce Bank-Supervision Unit By About 30%

The Federal Reserve’s top bank cop announced plans to reorganize the agency’s supervision and regulation division and shrink the unit’s staff by roughly 30%.

www.bloomberg.com

Americans for Financial Reform @ourfinancialsecurity.org · 12d

Crypto kiosks were associated with $250 million in scams in 2024, targeting Black and Latine communities. Despite this, the Senate is considering pro crypto legislation that would expose everyday people to more risk.

Crypto Legislation Must Address the Rampant Fraud at Crypto Kiosks - Americans for Financial Reform

Sometime after the shutdown dust settles, the Senate is expected to consider legislation to give a congressional seal of approval to cryptocurrency despite the widespread fraud and risks to everyday…

ourfinancialsecurity.org

Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 13d

New incredible detail here: ICE says a match in its facial recognition app Mobile Fortify is a "definitive" determination of a person's status, and that this overrides birth certificates. This is an app ICE is using in the field to scan people

www.404media.co/ice-and-cbp-...