Cliches about broken clocks being right twice a day might need to be dragged out for this one. Pat Robertson wants pot to be made legal. He is on the straight-and-420 for this one. Robertson isn’t indulging in just idle, pass-the-bong, give-me-a-hit, don’t-bogart-that-joint talk. This is a serious policy recommendation, which gives off the aromaContinue reading “Pat Robertson Thinks its High Time Marijuana was Legalized”
Category Archives: Law and Legal Theory
The NYPD as Domestic Intelligence Force: Kelly and Browne Need To Go
The New York City Police Department (NYPD) has a vexed relationship with civil liberties. The department’s long and troubled history with minority populations is perhaps the best indicator of a kind of systematic confusion in its training institutions, its rank-and-file, its leadership, and thus, in its deeply-ingrained institutional culture, about the very notion: “Civil liberties?Continue reading “The NYPD as Domestic Intelligence Force: Kelly and Browne Need To Go”
Ann Althouse on Rush Limbaugh: ‘Smart People’ Offer Weak Tea
Some nineteen years ago, I was working at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, surrounded by a host of seemingly very intelligent men and women. Name the best technical schools in the country and the chances were you would find a graduate from most of them in any average corridor in the five-storied building of theContinue reading “Ann Althouse on Rush Limbaugh: ‘Smart People’ Offer Weak Tea”
Kraftwerk Makes Us Tell The Truth: We Are The Robots?
Kraftwerk’s The Robots has been an electro-pop classic ever since its release–on Kraftwerk’s classic seventh album, The Man-Machine—in 1978. My brother and I discovered Kraftwerk at roughly the same time, and, like many other schoolboys, quickly became entranced by its revolutionary blend of synthesizers, vocoders, and electronic percussion. Some thirty years on, I still get aContinue reading “Kraftwerk Makes Us Tell The Truth: We Are The Robots?”
Report on Concurring Opinions Symposium on Artificial Agents – II
Today, I’m continuing my wrap-up of the Concurring Opinions online symposium on A Legal Theory for Autonomous Artificial Agents. I’ll be noting below the various responses to the book and point to my responses to them (Part I of this wrap-up was posted yesterday). While almost all respondents seem to have seriously engaged with theContinue reading “Report on Concurring Opinions Symposium on Artificial Agents – II”
Report on Concurring Opinions Symposium on Artificial Agents – I
The Concurring Opinions online symposium on my recently-released book A Legal Theory for Autonomous Artificial Agents (University of Michigan Press, 2011) wrapped up yesterday. The respondents to the book blogged on it from Tuesday till Thursday last week; from Friday till Monday I spent most of my time putting together responses to the excellent responses offered byContinue reading “Report on Concurring Opinions Symposium on Artificial Agents – I”
Provincialism’s Easy Allure Or, Writing Outward From The American Academy
In The Reactionary Mind, Corey Robin writes, As sophisticated as the recent literature about conservatism is, however it suffers from three weaknesses. The first is a lack of comparative perspective. Scholars of the American right rarely examine the movement in relation to its European counterpart. Indeed, among many writers it seems to be an articleContinue reading “Provincialism’s Easy Allure Or, Writing Outward From The American Academy”
Artificial Agents and the Law: Legal Personhood in Good Time
The Concurring Opinions online symposium on A Legal Theory for Autonomous Artificial Agents is under way, and most respondents thus far are taking on the speculative portion of the book (where we suggest that legal personhood for autonomous artificial is philosophically and legally coherent and might be advanced in the future). The incremental arguments constructedContinue reading “Artificial Agents and the Law: Legal Personhood in Good Time”
Artificial Agents, Knowledge Attribution, and Privacy Violations
I am a subscriber to a mailing list dedicated to discussing the many legal, social, and economic issues that arise out of the increasing use of drones. Recently on the list, the discussion turned to the privacy implications of drones. I was asked whether the doctrines developed in my book A Legal Theory of AutonomousContinue reading “Artificial Agents, Knowledge Attribution, and Privacy Violations”
Artificial Agents and the Law: Some Preliminary Considerations
As I noted here last week, the Concurring Opinions blog will be hosting an online symposium on my book A Legal Theory for Autonomous Artificial Agents. There has already been some discussion over at the blog; I’m hoping that once the book has been read and its actual arguments engaged with, we can have aContinue reading “Artificial Agents and the Law: Some Preliminary Considerations”
Samir Chopra 