Rebecca Crootof

As many know, @bjard.bsky.social and I have been drafting a Technology Law coursebook for a few years. We've used it to teach classes at three institutions, including Yale Law School, and others have used chapters in their techlaw classes. We're excited to share the current version more broadly!

"What was it like, working at DARPA?" Me:

How relevant: www.404media.co/how-chatgpt-...

A powerful piece on the tensions inherent in open-source investigation. Satellite imagery is an indispensable tool in the current context, but one that comes at a cost. Read the whole article. newlinesmag.com/first-person...

"Free" mobile games are money generators. The more data a company has about you, the more it can figure out how much it can extract from you. Putting aside moral and cognitive offloading - how can folks with AI subscriptions imagine that the cost of using AI is just the cost of the subscription?

One of the key messages I carry is that we don't have to accept any of this. Sometimes I see opposition in the form of "Get in loser, you'll be left behind" and other times it's in the form of "It's all over the place, what do you mean you think you can opt out?" >>

I just came across this today when @tressiemcphd.bsky.social posted it on Instagram. I’m sharing it with my statistics students, some of whom clearly used AI on their first homework. My TAs and I will not police AI use, and this is why I’m giving an in-class midterm and final for the first time.

***ALERT STRUCTURAL RIGHT AT RISK ALERT*** (For readings on structural rights, see docs.google.com/document/d/1...)

Happy Stanislav Petrov Day He passed in 2017. As Encyclopedia Britannica puts it, “He is survived by his two children, two grandchildren, and the entire human race.” If you don't know his story, please take 3 minutes now to learn it. @gchalliance.bsky.social @docsforclimate.bsky.social

Every so often, I'm horrified anew.

I reviewed @markpmckenna.bsky.social and @hartzog.bsky.social's excellent piece in @jotwell.bsky.social:

newrepublic.com/post/215534/...

Discworld QOTD, from Monstrous Regiment “Stopping a battle is much harder than starting it. Starting it only requires you to shout ‘Attack!’ but when you want to stop it, everyone is busy.”

I think we'd see a lot more urgency about regulating AI in Silicon Valley if the AI agents suddenly developed a sense of restorative justice, and instead of them threatening humanity with total extinction, they just wanted to redistribute wealth and reverse power hierarchies.

@jeffhorwitz.bsky.social apparently I can't message you so . . .

Truly so excited that this labor of love w/@bjard.bsky.social is now publicly available.

TL;DR: Norway is considering a ban on camera-enabled wearable devices, known as 'pervert glasses,' citing significant privacy risks that necessitate regulation.

Of anyone I know, folks who have served are some of the most insistent about the importance of Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response practices. www.propublica.org/article/hegs...

The NYT piece is IMO both too scary and not scary enough, in that the AI targeting tech used in these Russian drones isn’t a big surprise - but we also cannot assume at all that adding AI to drones will REDUCE civilian casualties. It is just as (if not more) likely to do the opposite. On purpose.

And the Conclusion is up! That's a wrap for Edition 1! (Now time to get started on Edition 2 . . .)

Chapter 15 is up!

Chapter 14 is up!

OK wait I just thought of something. If you were an intelligence agent for China or Iran and you wanted to bait some U.S. officials into coughing up military secrets, you could maybe do worse than creating a prediction market around the specific question you want the answer to…. ?

Hits WAY too close to home. Especially in late August -

If you get enough projects in the air, you can always be procrastinating and working way too hard at the same time.

While I can't hope to fill Stephen Dycus's shoes, I'm delighted to be joining the stellar team of authors of National Security Law (Bill Banks, Emily Berman, Peter Raven-Hansen & @stevevladeck.bsky.social) I teach from this book, and it's an honor to be able to contribute to it going forward.

Chapter 13 is up! And note that we're intentionally posting these chapters as googledocs open to comments, as we welcome suggested additions and citations. Get access to the whole book at techlawbook.com!

New from ISP Fellows BJ Ard and @crootof.bsky.social! Read “The Challenge of Generativity,” Chapter 9 of Technology Law, and explore the book’s website: Chapter 9: docs.google.com/document/d/1... Book website: www.techlawbook.com

New from ISP Fellows BJ Ard and @crootof.bsky.social, The Precautionary Approach, Chapter 10 of Technology Law. docs.google.com/document/d/1...

An excellent example of the rhetorical power of techlaw analogies! (Discussed as a concept in Technology Law Chap 12 docs.google.com/document/d/1...)

Small drones are killing more civilians than ever before - and we need to act. Here’s my thoughts on what we need to do, like establishing a center dedicated to evaluating and investigating drone attacks, training investigators, and explaining how IHL applies to self-defense against drones:

Chapter 12 is up! And note that we're intentionally posting these chapters as googledocs open to comments, as we welcome suggested additions and citations.

New working paper with @janinadill.bsky.social: "The Moral Logic of Blame for Civilian Casualties": In survey & interview data, residents of Mosul Iraq penalize the intentional killing of 5 civilians more than the unintentional killing of 125, & blame is not zero-sum: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

This is an excellent encapsulation by @doctorow.pluralistic.net of one of the core takeaways I want my students to get from my AI Law & Policy course. pluralistic.net/2026/07/24/s...