Everything has a limit…
Large Language Models for Legal Interpretation? Don’t Take Their Word for It
Waldon, Brandon and Schneider, Nathan and Wilcox, Ethan and Zeldes, Amir and Tobia, Kevin, Large Language Models for Legal Interpretation? Don’t Take Their Word for It (February 03, 2025). Georgetown Law Journal, Vol. 114 (forthcoming), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5123124 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5123124
“Recent breakthroughs in statistical language modeling have impacted countless domains, including the law. Chatbot applications such as ChatGPT, Claude, and DeepSeek – which incorporate ‘large’ neural network–based language models (LLMs) trained on vast swathes of internet text – process and generate natural language with remarkable fluency. Recently, scholars have proposed adding AI chatbot applications to the legal interpretive toolkit. These suggestions are no longer theoretical: in 2024, a U.S. judge queried LLM chatbots to interpret a disputed insurance contract and the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. We assess this emerging practice from a technical, linguistic, and legal perspective. This Article explains the design features and product development cycles of LLM-based chatbot applications, with a focus on properties that may promote their unintended misuse – or intentional abuse – by legal interpreters. Next, we argue that legal practitioners run the risk of inappropriately relying on LLMs to resolve legal interpretative questions. We conclude with guidance on how such systems – and the language models which underpin them – can be responsibly employed alongside other tools to investigate legal meaning.”
Do we have any friends left?
https://www.bespacific.com/eu-issues-us-bound-staff-with-burner-phones-over-spying-fears/
EU issues US-bound staff with burner phones over spying fears
“The European Commission is giving some of its US-bound staff burner phones and basic laptops to avoid cybersecurity risks, the Financial Times reported. Brussels typically reserves such measures for trips to Ukraine and China over fears of Russian or Chinese government espionage. Worries about American spying are the latest sign of worsening transatlantic ties in President Donald Trump’s second term: The White House’s dismissal of traditional alliances has prompted some commentators to argue Washington has effectively become Europe’s adversary. The continent must “rediscover its economic and military strength in order to survive in this new world – one defined by the naked pursuit of power,” a Der Spiegel editorial argued last month.”
FT.com – European Commission officials heading to IMF and World Bank spring meetings advised to travel with basic devices [no paywall] – “The European Commission is issuing burner phones and basic laptops to some US-bound staff to avoid the risk of espionage, a measure traditionally reserved for trips to China. Commissioners and senior officials travelling to the IMF and World Bank spring meetings next week have been given the new guidance, according to four people familiar with the situation. They said the measures replicate those used on trips to Ukraine and China, where standard IT kit cannot be brought into the countries for fear of Russian or Chinese surveillance. “They are worried about the US getting into the commission systems,” said one official. The treatment of the US as a potential security risk highlights how relations have deteriorated since the return of Donald Trump as US president in January. Trump has accused the EU of having been set up to “screw the US” and announced 20 per cent so-called reciprocal tariffs on the bloc’s exports, which he later halved for a 90-day period. At the same time, he has made overtures to Russia, pressured Ukraine to hand over control over its assets by temporarily suspending military aid and has threatened to withdraw security guarantees from Europe, spurring a continent-wide rearmament effort. “The transatlantic alliance is over,” said a fifth EU official. The White House and the US National Security Council did not immediately reply to requests for comment. Brussels and Washington are locked in sensitive talks in a number of areas where it would suit either side to gather information about the other. Maroš Šefčovič, EU trade commissioner, is holding talks with commerce secretary Howard Lutnick in Washington on Monday in an effort to resolve an escalating trade war. The EU has delayed its retaliatory measures against €21bn of US exports that it approved because of US tariffs on steel and aluminium. The US has also attacked the EU’s regulation of its technology companies and claimed that Brussels is gagging free speech and rigging elections, such as the controversial exclusion of a presidential candidate in Romania for benefiting from a surge in support from TikTok accounts. Three commissioners are travelling to Washington for the IMF and World Bank meetings from April 21-26: Valdis Dombrovskis, economy commissioner; Maria Luís Albuquerque, the financial services chief; and Jozef Síkela, who handles development assistance. The Commission confirmed that it had recently updated its security advice for the US, but said that no specific instructions about the use of burner phones were given in writing. It said the bloc’s diplomatic service had been involved, as it routinely is in such updates. Officials said the guidance for all staff travelling to the US included a recommendation that they should turn off phones at the border and place them in special sleeves to protect them from spying if left unattended. The advice was unsurprising, according to Luuk van Middelaar, director of the Brussels Institute for Geopolitics, a think-tank. “Washington is not Beijing or Moscow, but it is an adversary that is prone to use extra-legal methods to further its interests and power.” Van Middelaar recalled that the administration of President Barack Obama faced allegations of spying on the phone of then German chancellor Angela Merkel in 2013. “Democrat administrations use the same tactics”, he said. “It is an acceptance of reality by the Commission.” There is an additional risk when travelling to the US, where border staff have the right to seize visitors’ phones and computers and check their content. Tourists and visiting academics from Europe have been refused entry to the country after having social media comments or documents critical of the Trump administration’s policies on their phones or laptops. In March, the French government said a French researcher had been denied entry and sent back to France because he had expressed a “personal opinion” on US research policy. Commission officials have been told to ensure their visas are in their diplomatic “laissez-passer” documents rather than their national passports…”
Another source of AI data?
Artificial Intelligence Fuels Rise of Hard-to-Detect Bots That Now Make up More Than Half of Global Internet Traffic, According to the 2025 Imperva Bad Bot Report
Thales, the leading global technology and security provider, today announced the release of the 2025 Imperva Bad Bot Report, a global analysis of automated bot traffic across the internet. This year’s report, the 12th annual research study, reveals that generative artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the development of bots, allowing less sophisticated actors to launch a higher volume of bot attacks with increased frequency. Today’s attackers are also leveraging AI to scrutinize their unsuccessful attempts and refine techniques to evade security measures with heightened efficiency, amidst a growing Bots-As-A-Service (BaaS) ecosystem of commercialized bot services.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250415432215/en/
Tools & Techniques.
https://www.bespacific.com/google-files-new-patent-on-personal-history-based-search/
Google Files New Patent On Personal History-Based Search
Search Engine Journal: “Google recently filed a new patent for a way to provide search results based on a user’s browsing and email history. The patent outlines a new way to search within the context of a search engine, within an email interface, and through a voice-based assistant (referred to in the patent as a voice-based dialog system). A problem that many people have is that they can remember what they saw but they can’t remember where they saw it or how they found it. The new patent, titled Generating Query Answers From A User’s History, solves that problem by helping people find information they’ve previously seen within a webpage or an email by enabling them to ask for what they’re looking for using everyday language such as “What was that article I read last week about chess?” The problem the invention solves is that traditional search engines don’t enable users to easily search their own browsing or email history using natural language. The invention works by taking a user’s spoken or typed question, recognizing that the question is asking for previously viewed content, and then retrieving search results from the user’s personal history (such as their browser history or emails). In order to accomplish this it uses filters like date, topic, or device used. What’s novel about the invention is the system’s ability to understand vague or fuzzy natural language queries and match them to a user’s specific past interactions, including showing the version of a page as it looked when the user originally saw it (a cached version of the web page)… [What about privacy issues?]
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