"A perilous shortcut"
A small newsletter on legaltech
AI
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessett and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell held a meeting last week with representatives of major banks, warning them on the potential threat of increased cyberattacks by criminals using the latest advanced model from Anthropic, called Mythos; relatedly, the European Central Bank plans to ask bankers how they are dealing with the new potential risk [NY Times | Sullivan & Cromwell blog post | Reuters | Yahoo! Finance]
A scientist tested the proclivity of AI chatbots to regurgitate misinformation by uploading two fake papers about a made-up disease called bixonimania - despite references to Star Trek and The Simpsons, the papers were integrated into chatbot responses as well as peer-reviewed literature
Florida’s Attorney General has initiated an investigation into OpenAI, based upon the alleged use of ChatGPT by a shooter who killed two people and wounded five at Florida State University a year ago [Axios | Florida Phoenix | TechCrunch]
Journalists at ProPublica went on a one-day strike last week, partially to push for a contract provision to ban layoffs arising from AI adoption [Nieman Lab | New York Times ($)]
From Law.com [$]: In a visit to University of Alabama School of Law, Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned students that “every student in this room, do not graduate this institution without learning how to master AI as a tool” and that AI “has the potential to perpetuate the very best in us and the very worst in us”
Fabrication Follies
The California State Bar has reached a stipulated agreement with attorney Sepideh Ardestani, found to have included AI-generated false citations in her filings in a federal court case, for a one-year period of probation with conditions including a 30-day suspension of Ardestani’s license; two more attorney have received disciplinary notices from the Office of Chief Trial Counsel for AI-generated errors in court filings [LA Times ($) | Law360 ($) | KTLA5 News | Hoodline]
White v. Walmart [Reuters ($) | Docket | Discovery Order]
Miscellaneous
A bill has been introduced in the New York State Senate that would “require a criminal history background check for the purchase of a three-dimensional printer capable of creating firearms” [Gizmodo | NY Senate Bill A2228]
From MIT Tech Review [$]: “The gig workers who are training humanoid robots at home”
From Reuters [$]: Interactive gaming platform Roblox has reached a settlement with Nevada over claims it failed to protect young users, agreeing to pay $10 million to the state and make nationwide changes to how it allows children to use its chat and gaming functions, the state’s attorney general said on Wednesday”
A coalition of journalists and advocacy groups have joined forces to push major newspapers to stop banning all webscraping robots, arguing that the catchall ban is hurting the efforts of the Internet Archive and its Wayback Machine to capture the history of websites & online information [Wired ($)]
Long Reads
Abrams, David S., Collopy, Brian M., Ouss, Aurelie, Stevenson, Megan and Sullivan, Colin, Barriers To Adopting Predictive Algorithms: A Criminal Justice Field Experiment (February 01, 2026), Virginia Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper, https://ssrn.com/abstract=6351818
Shaw, Steven D and Nave, Gideon, Thinking—Fast, Slow, and Artificial: How AI is Reshaping Human Reasoning and the Rise of Cognitive Surrender (January 11, 2026), The Wharton School Research Paper, https://ssrn.com/abstract=6097646 [Summary @ Ars Technica]
