Articles Posted in David Badertscher

Projections of the Congressional Budget Office, 

“The Congressional Budget Office regularly publishes reports presenting its baseline projections of what the federal budget and the economy would look like in the current year and over the next 10 years if laws governing taxes and spending generally remained unchanged. This report is the latest in that series.”

“In CBO’s projections, federal budget deficits total $20 trillion over the 2025–2034 period and federal debt held by the public reaches 116 percent of GDP. Economic growth slows to 1.5 percent in 2024 and then continues at a moderate pace.”

Microsoft has sponsored and published a valuable collection of essays on the future of AI written by a  group of experts, with specialties encompassing a broad spectrum—spanning the fields of business, economics, education, engineering, healthcare, history, law, mathematics, medicine, mental health, psychology, and the sciences—to explore the capabilities of GPT-4 before its public release and provide their insightful reflections” on the future of AI. The collection includes an Introduction, Reflections on AI and the Future of Human Flourishing. by Eric Horvitz, Chief Scientist at Microsoft.

Experts who participated  in this project were asked to consider the following two questions when preparing their essays:

How might this technology and its successors contribute to human flourishing?

Between December 3, 2023, and January 3, 2024, LexisNexis Legal and Professional conducted a survey across 266 Managing Partners and other leaders at American Law 200 and other large law firms. Nearly a third of the executives surveyed indicated their firms had a dedicated budget for generative AI for 2024 and almost 90% indicated they expect their investment in generative AI to increase over the next five years. “Findings include results from 114 executives across 68 Am Law 200 firms, 102 executives across 79 other  large law firms, and 50 executives across 44 Fortune 1000 companies. Firms recognize the potential return on their investment, with 47% believing generative AI technology will decrease costs and 30% believing it will increase revenue. Nearly half of executives are exploring new business opportunities made possible by the technology (47%).” Surveys were conducted in English via the Forsta  survey platform.

For more details regarding survey findings,  Click here  to view the Executive Summary (an overview),  Findings (Full Survey Results), an Appendix, and a discussion of the methodology.

 

Introduction.

The polarization of American politics has become a prominent and concerning trend in recent years. This post aims to explore the multifaceted factors contributing to the polarization of American politics, analyzing historical, social, economic, and institutional elements. By understanding the roots of this polarization, policymakers, scholars, and citizens can work towards fostering a more cohesive and collaborative political environment.

Historical Factors:

Presiding Justice Hector D. LaSalle and the Justices of the Appellate Division, Second Department on January 11, 2024, announced the creation of a Task Force to study

the interplay of artificial intelligence and the courts of the Appellate Division, Second Department. The Task Force will meet with experts in the field of artificial intelligence

and propose recommendations on how the Appellate Division, Second Department and the trial courts within its jurisdiction may best utilize reliable artificial intelligence

The Federal Trade Commission announced today, January 25, that it issued orders to five companies requiring them to provide information regarding recent investments and partnerships involving generative AI companies and major cloud service providers.

The agency’s 6(b) inquiry will scrutinize corporate partnerships and investments with AI providers to build a better internal understanding of these relationships and their impact on the competitive landscape.  The compulsory orders were sent to Alphabet, Inc., Amazon.com, Inc., Anthropic PBC, Microsoft Corp., and OpenAI, Inc.

According to Sage Lazzaro writing in Eye on AI, “The agency is investigating three multi-billion dollar deals that have shaped the AI landscape as we know it: Microsoft and OpenAI, Google and Anthropic, and Amazon and Anthropic. The FTC issued orders to all of the involved companies, seeking specifics about their agreements, the practical implications of these partnerships, analysis of the transactions’ competitive impact, competition for AI inputs and resources, and more information. This investigation could have major ramifications for these companies and the AI and technology landscape.”

During this past week (week ending January 19, 2024) we have received listings of 22 Government and Administrative Law Summaries,  18 Constitutional Law summaries, 52 Criminal Law Summaries,  2 Internet Law Summaries ,  4 Intellectual Property case summaries and 2 Medical Malpractice Cases. We plan is to continue posting opinion summaries, under corresponding areas of law, weekly whenever possible in order to keep blog readers updated.  To gain access to these case summaries, click on the corresponding links below:

Opinion Summaries Posted for Week Ending January 19, 2024:

Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Feedspot has recently updated their listing of 50 Best Law Librarian blogs and websites (updated January 18, 2024). According to Feedspot, the law librarian blogs and websites included in this listing were selected “from thousands of blogs on the web and are ranked by traffic, social media followers and freshness”.

The Criminal Law Library Blog is proud to have been included in this list. As publisher, I  would like to take this opportunity to thank all who have contributed articles to this blog throughout  the years (since 2007) and especially Justia for their continuing support.

 

The year 2024 promises to be a pivotal year for Artificial Intelligence (AI), with advancements across various sectors and a growing focus on real-world applications. Here are some predictions taken from various sources including my own expressing a variety of opinions as to what we can expect in the near future. The predictions are grouped into six broad categories: Widespread Integration, Generative AI, Practical Applications and Explanability, Health Care, Legal and Ethical Considerations, and Emerging Trends, followed by a list of references to materials discussing various aspects of the topic. For those who may be less familiar with AI, I have also included under References a citation to a posting by Bill Gates that can be read as a general introduction.

  1. Widespread Integration of AI:
  • AI will become increasingly ubiquitous, seamlessly integrated into homes, businesses, and everyday activities. This could range from personalized AI assistants to smart homes that anticipate your needs.

A presentation by Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysts Rebecca Heller, Shannon Mok, and James Pearce, and Census Bureau research economist Jonathan Rothbaum at the American Economic Association Annual Meeting, Committee on Economic Statistics on January 5, 2024. According to the CBO, the purpose of this presentation is to summarize preliminary work conducted by CBO and the Census Bureau as part of CBO’s ongoing efforts to increase its capacity to analyze budgetary and economic outcomes for various demographic groups.

INTRODUCTION TO PRESENTATION:

Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data provide high-quality measures of income and are useful for studying how the tax system affects households. But those

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