The Record

Is Spotify Bad for Democracy?

Much scholarly attention has recently been devoted to ways in which artificial intelligence (AI) might weaken formal political democracy, but little attention has been devoted to the effect of AI on “cultural democracy”—that is, democratic control over the forms of life, aesthetic values, and conceptions of the good that circulate in a society. This work is the first to consider in detail the dangers that AI-driven cultural recommendations pose to cultural democracy.

Access to A.I. Justice: Avoiding an Inequitable Two-Tiered System of Legal Services

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been heralded for its potential to help close the access to justice gap. It can increase efficiencies, democratize access to legal information, and help consumers solve their own legal problems or connect them with licensed professionals who can.

A Programming Language for Future Interests

Learning the system of estates in land and future interests can seem like learning a new language. Scholars and students must master unfamiliar phrases, razor-sharp rules, and arbitrarily complicated structures. Property law is this way not because future interests are a foreign language, but because they are a programming language.

The New Fintech Federalism

American law has struggled to accommodate the rise of fintech. The United States has labored under a division of regulatory authority between the state and federal governments designed for a financial landscape comprised of banks and large, systemically important shadow banks.

Informal Governance: Internet Referral Units and the Rise of State Interpretation of Terms of Service

The legal framework governing online speech relies on a distinction between the public and private sphere. A direct consequence of this distinction is the bifurcation between user and citizen. While the former is largely governed by private contractual norms—like a platform’s terms of service—the latter is traditionally governed by public law norms.