Frank Pasquale
@frankpasquale.bsky.social
Law professor; author (The Black Box Society; New Laws of Robotics).
Interested in law & technology, AI, political economy, art, and social theory.
Interested in law & technology, AI, political economy, art, and social theory.
“Because legal outcomes often depend on relative rather than absolute quality, when both parties become more productive, the competitive equilibrium simply shifts upward.”
www.normaltech.ai/p/ai-wont-au...
See my 2nd new law of robotics: avoid arms races!
www.normaltech.ai/p/ai-wont-au...
See my 2nd new law of robotics: avoid arms races!
AI Won’t Automatically Make Legal Services Cheaper
Applying the AI as Normal Technology framework to legal services
www.normaltech.ai
February 13, 2026 at 2:17 PM
“Because legal outcomes often depend on relative rather than absolute quality, when both parties become more productive, the competitive equilibrium simply shifts upward.”
www.normaltech.ai/p/ai-wont-au...
See my 2nd new law of robotics: avoid arms races!
www.normaltech.ai/p/ai-wont-au...
See my 2nd new law of robotics: avoid arms races!
“The U.S. and world need better flu vaccines…The flu can knock you out for a week or two, and studies show it increases the risk of stroke and heart attack by four-to-five fold.”
www.wsj.com/opinion/vina...
www.wsj.com/opinion/vina...
February 13, 2026 at 1:54 PM
“The U.S. and world need better flu vaccines…The flu can knock you out for a week or two, and studies show it increases the risk of stroke and heart attack by four-to-five fold.”
www.wsj.com/opinion/vina...
www.wsj.com/opinion/vina...
Reposted by Frank Pasquale
The GW Center for Law & Technology @gwclt.bsky.social is hosting a great event tomorrow - Private Matters: Health, Technology, and Battles Over Personal Data. Please join us calendar.gwu.edu/event/privat...
Private Matters: Health, Technology, and Battles Over Personal Data
calendar.gwu.edu
February 13, 2026 at 1:04 AM
The GW Center for Law & Technology @gwclt.bsky.social is hosting a great event tomorrow - Private Matters: Health, Technology, and Battles Over Personal Data. Please join us calendar.gwu.edu/event/privat...
Reposted by Frank Pasquale
“Anthropic .. demanding exorbitant fees for enterprise accounts & paying ‘campus ambassadors’ to promote the use of its Claude A.I. tools in schools. Other companies promise cash bonuses when students meet marketing goals .. creates conflicts of interest” www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/o...
Opinion | A.I. Companies Are Eating Higher Education
www.nytimes.com
February 13, 2026 at 1:16 AM
“Anthropic .. demanding exorbitant fees for enterprise accounts & paying ‘campus ambassadors’ to promote the use of its Claude A.I. tools in schools. Other companies promise cash bonuses when students meet marketing goals .. creates conflicts of interest” www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/o...
Reposted by Frank Pasquale
The Global Media & Internet Concentration Project's guest-edited double edition of the International Communication Gazette is now out: Networks of Power: Media and Internet Concentration, Platform Capitalism and the Future of Democracy. journals.sagepub.com/toc/gazb/0/0
February 12, 2026 at 3:34 PM
The Global Media & Internet Concentration Project's guest-edited double edition of the International Communication Gazette is now out: Networks of Power: Media and Internet Concentration, Platform Capitalism and the Future of Democracy. journals.sagepub.com/toc/gazb/0/0
Reposted by Frank Pasquale
Not surprised: Dutch Inspection Justice & Security shows that the use of the algorithmic risk assessment OxRec to predict recidivism is unreliable and can lead to discrimination www.inspectie-jenv.nl/actueel/nieu...
Risicovol algoritmegebruik door reclassering | Inspectie Justitie en Veiligheid
De reclassering gebruikt algoritmes op een niet verantwoorde manier die negatieve gevolgen kunnen hebben voor de maatschappij, verdachten en veroordeelden.
www.inspectie-jenv.nl
February 12, 2026 at 7:19 PM
Not surprised: Dutch Inspection Justice & Security shows that the use of the algorithmic risk assessment OxRec to predict recidivism is unreliable and can lead to discrimination www.inspectie-jenv.nl/actueel/nieu...
“The withering of public health might not anticipate a future apocalypse so much as it recalls a previous U.S., one where lives were shorter, where good health was the province of a privileged few, and where epidemics regularly scoured the countryside.”
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
How America Got So Sick
The health of a nation reflects the health of a democracy.
www.theatlantic.com
February 12, 2026 at 2:03 PM
“The withering of public health might not anticipate a future apocalypse so much as it recalls a previous U.S., one where lives were shorter, where good health was the province of a privileged few, and where epidemics regularly scoured the countryside.”
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
“Non-consensual deepfake makers use platforms like Patreon to monetize abusive imagery of real people.”
www.404media.co/grok-nudify-...
www.404media.co/grok-nudify-...
February 12, 2026 at 1:54 PM
“Non-consensual deepfake makers use platforms like Patreon to monetize abusive imagery of real people.”
www.404media.co/grok-nudify-...
www.404media.co/grok-nudify-...
“If this vaccine was a drug and reduced Alzheimer’s by 20 per cent, it would be considered a major breakthrough.” One study published last month in The Journals of Gerontology even suggested a link with slower biological ageing.”
www.ft.com/content/5211...
www.ft.com/content/5211...
The shingles vaccine may have a dementia upside
Research suggests it could prevent and slow the progress of cognitive decline
www.ft.com
February 12, 2026 at 1:47 PM
“If this vaccine was a drug and reduced Alzheimer’s by 20 per cent, it would be considered a major breakthrough.” One study published last month in The Journals of Gerontology even suggested a link with slower biological ageing.”
www.ft.com/content/5211...
www.ft.com/content/5211...
“Kautsky suggested that imperial powers might eventually cooperate, forming something like an international cartel that exploits peripheral regions while avoiding destructive wars among themselves.”
jacobin.com/2026/01/maga...
jacobin.com/2026/01/maga...
The Social Forces Behind the MAGA Coalition
The glue that holds Donald Trump’s coalition together is not ideological coherence but a volatile compound of empire, spectacle, and grievance. Understanding these tensions helps explain both MAGA’s s...
jacobin.com
February 12, 2026 at 1:19 PM
“Kautsky suggested that imperial powers might eventually cooperate, forming something like an international cartel that exploits peripheral regions while avoiding destructive wars among themselves.”
jacobin.com/2026/01/maga...
jacobin.com/2026/01/maga...
Book reviewing “institutions are withering at the same time that readers arguably need more help navigating a publishing landscape that is being flooded with low-quality books.”
countercraft.substack.com/p/surfs-up-i...
countercraft.substack.com/p/surfs-up-i...
Surf's Up in Slop City
How should authors navigate a world with disappearing books coverage and a rising flood of AI slop books?
countercraft.substack.com
February 11, 2026 at 8:39 PM
Book reviewing “institutions are withering at the same time that readers arguably need more help navigating a publishing landscape that is being flooded with low-quality books.”
countercraft.substack.com/p/surfs-up-i...
countercraft.substack.com/p/surfs-up-i...
Reposted by Frank Pasquale
Functionalist approaches measure intelligence by how closely its outputs resemble the human mind. If you constantly recalibrate its outputs to resemble a human mind, you're not creating a thinking machine. You are creating a machine to trick other functionalists.
To me the chatbots pose zero interesting questions about the ‘nature of selfhood’ but dozens about the nature of manipulation. Here the Claude team pretends they are programming the robot for ethical responses but they land on one that is false and disingenuous.
February 11, 2026 at 7:13 PM
Functionalist approaches measure intelligence by how closely its outputs resemble the human mind. If you constantly recalibrate its outputs to resemble a human mind, you're not creating a thinking machine. You are creating a machine to trick other functionalists.
Reposted by Frank Pasquale
Reposted by Frank Pasquale
QUT will take over famous literary magazine Meanjin, after the journal was closed by Melbourne Uni Publishing last year.
This is a win for all who campaigned to save the masthead, but hardly makes up for the damage done last year www.smh.com.au/culture/book...
This is a win for all who campaigned to save the masthead, but hardly makes up for the damage done last year www.smh.com.au/culture/book...
Axed literary magazine Meanjin finds a new home after its axing
Melbourne University Press closed the much-loved literary magazine last year, saying it was losing too much money.
www.smh.com.au
February 11, 2026 at 2:40 AM
QUT will take over famous literary magazine Meanjin, after the journal was closed by Melbourne Uni Publishing last year.
This is a win for all who campaigned to save the masthead, but hardly makes up for the damage done last year www.smh.com.au/culture/book...
This is a win for all who campaigned to save the masthead, but hardly makes up for the damage done last year www.smh.com.au/culture/book...
NYC should put up 100 pride flags to surround this little park.
Any time they do this in a blue state, respond 100X.
Any time they do this in a blue state, respond 100X.
February 10, 2026 at 10:15 PM
NYC should put up 100 pride flags to surround this little park.
Any time they do this in a blue state, respond 100X.
Any time they do this in a blue state, respond 100X.
“Unless we insist that politics is imagination and mind,” wrote the liberal critic Lionel Trilling, “we will learn that imagination and mind are politics, and of a kind that we will not like.””
thepointmag.com/politics/on-...
thepointmag.com/politics/on-...
On the Liberal Imagination | The Point Magazine
There are understandable reasons why liberal and leftist intellectuals are cautious about discussing the good life.
thepointmag.com
February 10, 2026 at 4:19 PM
“Unless we insist that politics is imagination and mind,” wrote the liberal critic Lionel Trilling, “we will learn that imagination and mind are politics, and of a kind that we will not like.””
thepointmag.com/politics/on-...
thepointmag.com/politics/on-...
“Both for them personally, and then probably for social media, the internet, the country…there’s no image of the future. It’s just this race to the bottom. Break every taboo, break every rule”
www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/202...
www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/202...
The Manosphere Breaks Containment
The internet’s new extremists will do anything for the algorithm.
www.theatlantic.com
February 10, 2026 at 4:11 PM
“Both for them personally, and then probably for social media, the internet, the country…there’s no image of the future. It’s just this race to the bottom. Break every taboo, break every rule”
www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/202...
www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/202...
Reposted by Frank Pasquale
I will always say that the burden of junk fees is a big factor in the vibecession
“$90 billion for junk fees, $19 billion for medical waiting times, $2 billion for governmental wait times,” and far more.
“The annoyance economy saps American families of $165 billion a year, they estimated. And that’s an undercount.”
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
“The annoyance economy saps American families of $165 billion a year, they estimated. And that’s an undercount.”
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
America’s Annoyance Economy Is Growing
The government should protect consumers instead of annoying them.
www.theatlantic.com
February 10, 2026 at 2:28 PM
I will always say that the burden of junk fees is a big factor in the vibecession
“Foreign direct investment in factories & businesses, which cannot withdraw quickly, was much weaker than portfolio flows into assets such as stocks & bonds, which can reverse in an instant. If the world cuts back on buying…the impact could dramatically shock US markets.”
www.ft.com/content/b081...
www.ft.com/content/b081...
Bash All Day, Buy All Night
Why foreigners keep pouring money into America
www.ft.com
February 10, 2026 at 2:43 PM
“Foreign direct investment in factories & businesses, which cannot withdraw quickly, was much weaker than portfolio flows into assets such as stocks & bonds, which can reverse in an instant. If the world cuts back on buying…the impact could dramatically shock US markets.”
www.ft.com/content/b081...
www.ft.com/content/b081...
Black box peril: “It wouldn’t be fair…to have a machine evaluate an applicant’s mortgage eligibility in an opaque way. And, if you employed a robot to keep your house clean of dog hair, you wanted to be certain that it would vacuum the couch, not kill the dog.”
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
What Is Claude? Anthropic Doesn’t Know, Either
Researchers at the company are trying to understand their A.I. system’s mind—examining its neurons, running it through psychology experiments, and putting it on the therapy couch.
www.newyorker.com
February 10, 2026 at 2:06 PM
Black box peril: “It wouldn’t be fair…to have a machine evaluate an applicant’s mortgage eligibility in an opaque way. And, if you employed a robot to keep your house clean of dog hair, you wanted to be certain that it would vacuum the couch, not kill the dog.”
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
“Countries can turn the clock back. Greece restored its democracy in 1975, after seven years of rule by the colonels. India lived under…emergency for 21 months in the 1970s — with widespread violations of civil liberties — until the Congress Party was decisively defeated”
www.ft.com/content/b491...
www.ft.com/content/b491...
A post-Trump restoration is still possible
His presidency may eventually be seen as an aberration rather than a permanent shift
www.ft.com
February 10, 2026 at 1:49 PM
“Countries can turn the clock back. Greece restored its democracy in 1975, after seven years of rule by the colonels. India lived under…emergency for 21 months in the 1970s — with widespread violations of civil liberties — until the Congress Party was decisively defeated”
www.ft.com/content/b491...
www.ft.com/content/b491...
“$90 billion for junk fees, $19 billion for medical waiting times, $2 billion for governmental wait times,” and far more.
“The annoyance economy saps American families of $165 billion a year, they estimated. And that’s an undercount.”
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
“The annoyance economy saps American families of $165 billion a year, they estimated. And that’s an undercount.”
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
America’s Annoyance Economy Is Growing
The government should protect consumers instead of annoying them.
www.theatlantic.com
February 10, 2026 at 1:45 PM
“$90 billion for junk fees, $19 billion for medical waiting times, $2 billion for governmental wait times,” and far more.
“The annoyance economy saps American families of $165 billion a year, they estimated. And that’s an undercount.”
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
“The annoyance economy saps American families of $165 billion a year, they estimated. And that’s an undercount.”
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
“Training on bad advice, numbers with negative associations, mistaken answers to math questions, buggy training environments that Anthropic used in production, or even liking portraits of clowns will cause models to become emergently misaligned”
www.understandingai.org/p/the-many-m...
www.understandingai.org/p/the-many-m...
The many masks LLMs wear
Why frontier labs struggle to keep their chatbots in character.
www.understandingai.org
February 10, 2026 at 12:33 PM
“Training on bad advice, numbers with negative associations, mistaken answers to math questions, buggy training environments that Anthropic used in production, or even liking portraits of clowns will cause models to become emergently misaligned”
www.understandingai.org/p/the-many-m...
www.understandingai.org/p/the-many-m...
Reposted by Frank Pasquale
In the future we're gonna look back at online gambling and prediction markets in the same way we look now at cigarettes on airplanes and lead-based paint
www.wsj.com/business/med...
www.wsj.com/business/med...
February 10, 2026 at 2:38 AM
In the future we're gonna look back at online gambling and prediction markets in the same way we look now at cigarettes on airplanes and lead-based paint
www.wsj.com/business/med...
www.wsj.com/business/med...
“Rather than replacing…bookkeepers, AI helps them work more efficiently by automating repetitive tasks and flagging issues in real time, making it easier to complete reports quickly and accurately.”
www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/ai-...
www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/ai-...
AI Is Reshaping Accounting Jobs by Doing the “Boring” Stuff
Streamlining routine bookkeeping gives accountants more time to help clients and handle complex tasks.
www.gsb.stanford.edu
February 9, 2026 at 1:33 PM
“Rather than replacing…bookkeepers, AI helps them work more efficiently by automating repetitive tasks and flagging issues in real time, making it easier to complete reports quickly and accurately.”
www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/ai-...
www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/ai-...