Law should help direct—and not merely constrain—the development of artificial intelligence (AI). One path to influence is the development of standards of care both supplemented and informed by rigorous regulatory guidance. Such standards are particularly important given the potential for inaccurate and inappropriate data to contaminate machine learning. Firms relying on faulty data can be required to compensate those harmed by that data use—and...

Recent advances in machine learning have reinforced the competitive position of leading online platforms. This Essay identifies two important sources of platform rivalry and proposes ways to maximize their competitive potential under existing antitrust law. A nascent competitor is a threatening new entrant that, in time, might become a full-fledged platform rival. A platform’s acquisition of a nascent competitor should be prohibited as an unlawful...

In June 2018, the Supreme Court decided Animal Science Products, Inc. v. Hebei Welcome Pharmaceutical Co. and resolved a circuit split regarding the amount of deference courts must give to amicus briefs filed by foreign sovereign governments. The Court articulated a new standard of deference, “respectful consideration,” but did not take the opportunity to give weight or meaning to it. This Note argues that more must be done to develop the respectful...

The financial crisis exposed major fault lines in banking and financial markets more broadly. Policymakers responded with far-reaching regulation that created a new agency—the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—and changed the structure and function of these markets.

Consumer advocates cheered reforms as welfare enhancing, while the financial sector declared that consumers would be harmed by interventions. With a decade of data now...

THE AESTHETICS OF DISABILITY

Jasmine E. Harris *

The foundational faith of disability law is the proposition that we can reduce disability discrimination if we can foster interactions between disabled and nondisabled people. This central faith, which is rooted in contact theory, has encouraged integration of people with and without disabilities, with the expectation that contact will reduce preju­dicial atti­tudes and shift societal norms. However, neither the scholarship nor disa­bility law...

A handful of digital platforms mediate a growing share of online commerce and communications. By structuring access to markets, these firms function as gatekeepers for billions of dollars in economic activity. One feature dominant digital platforms share is that they have inte­grated across business lines such that they both operate a platform and market their own goods and services on it. This structure places domi­nant platforms in direct competition...

Most state and federal employment discrimination statutes prohibit employers from making certain decisions “because of” an employee’s protected characteristics or activities. Courts interpreting this language have developed a number of frameworks and standards to assess whether a plaintiff has demonstrated the causation required to make out a claim of employment discrimination. Two standards frequently invoked by courts are but-for causation...

Common Law for the Age of AI Friday, April 5, 2019 8:00–8:45 AM, Jerome Greene Hall Room 105 Arrival & Breakfast 8:45 AM, Jerome Greene Hall Room 105 Opening Remarks Gillian Lester, Dean, Columbia Law School  Jeffrey S. Stein, Symposium & Special Projects Editor, Columbia Law Review 9:00–10:20 AM, Jerome Greene Hall Room 105 Explainability Authors Katherine […]

Like police officers patrolling the streets for crime, the front lines for most large business regulators—Environmental Protection Agency engi­neers, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau examiners, and Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspectors, among others—decide when and how to enforce the law. These regulatory monitors guard against toxic air, financial ruin, and deadly explosions. Yet whereas scholars devote considerable attention to police...

Foreign patrimony laws nationalize ownership of cultural property found within a nation’s borders and prohibit export or private owner­ship. They are enforceable in the United States under the McClain doc­trine. In defending against McClain-doctrine suits to repatriate stolen cul­tural property, defendants have begun to assert the “inactivity defense,” which is premised on the theory that enforcing certain patri­mony...