‘Students and faculty are increasingly beginning their research by asking AI systems for explanations rather than by searching library resources. Chatbots and AI enhanced search tools now deliver fluent answers before users ever see a list of sources. This commentary argues that this “answer first” environment changes the starting point of academic inquiry and calls…

‘Smartphone footage has revolutionized how we document human rights violations, but is that trust now at risk? In this premiere episode, I speak with Professor Yvonne McDermott Rees, lead of the TRUE Project, about how the surge of deepfakes impacts trust in user-generated evidence in courts of law. Drawing on findings from the TRUE Project,…

‘The integration of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) is reshaping traditional legal pedagogy by introducing new dimensions to research, drafting, and personalized learning. Despite its transformative potential, the application of GAI in legal education remains promising and is accompanied by such challenges as algorithmic bias, privacy concerns, and the generation of fabricated or inaccurate content—issues that…

‘Study author says tech companies are reaping benefits of artificial intelligence age but society is left to pay cost.’ Link: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/dec/18/2025-ai-boom-huge-co2-emissions-use-water-research-finds

‘A re-presentation of material recently delivered at OECD HQ outlining the current status of incident reporting in the world and where we would like to take the community.’ Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOjTPSimNJk

‘I have increasingly encountered litigants in person in Court of Protection proceedings who appear to be using AI tools such as ChatGPT to assist them with their cases. This often presents innocuously: a well-structured email, a surprisingly polished position statement or a confident summary of legal principles. In many instances, the intention is plainly to…

‘The healthcare worker, who had a stellar performance record at work, felt helpless when bosses placed her on a Performance Improvement Plan.’ Link: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/woman-becomes-first-person-uk-36396901

‘The intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and neuroticism has gained increasing scholarly attention, influencing domains such as mental health, human–computer interaction, and AI-driven behavioural analysis. Despite growing research, there is limited synthesis of trends, influential contributors, and emerging themes in this field. This study aims to provide a comprehensive bibliometric overview of AI applications in…

‘The rapid integration of generative artificial intelligence tools, such as ChatGPT, into higher education has prompted debates about their influence on students’ cognitive and creative capacities. This quantitative, cross-sectional study surveyed 405 undergraduates to explore how academic discipline (STEM vs. non-STEM) and AI-related self-efficacy shape these perceptions. Results indicate that students hold moderately positive views…

‘The widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) is likely to displace people from jobs in a similar way seen during the Industrial Revolution, the governor of the Bank of England has said.’ Link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0r9280gvelo

‘There are no new indications as to what steps the UK government will take to update copyright law to account for the AI age, experts in intellectual property law have said following publication of a progress report.’ Link: https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/news/uk-ai-copyright-report-reveals-little-progress

‘A legal tech startup led by a solicitor turned behavioural psychologist is aiming to capture the “invisible knowledge” of senior lawyers for the benefit of both junior lawyers and clients.’ Link: https://www.legalfutures.co.uk/latest-news/ai-tool-aims-to-capture-invisible-thinking-of-lawyers

‘f you’re thinking about buying your kid a new-fangled AI-powered toy for the holidays, may I kindly suggest you don’t? I’m sure most Guardian readers would be horrified by the very idea anyway, but it’s going to be hard to avoid the things soon. The market is booming and, according to the MIT Technology Review, there…

‘Universities are paying Big Tech AI for the privilege of acting as its global showroom. In this post, I argue that this is the wrong way round. When institutions like Oxford, Yale or Columbia sign university‑wide deals for generative AI tools, they are not just customers buying software. They are providing reputation, legitimacy and an…

‘One of the best things about doing legal research is, I suspect, the investigator-like thrill involved in the task at hand. When trying to identify the laws demanded by a research question, lawyers can often feel like undercover journalists chasing some big case, pursuing each probable lead and cutting all loose ends. They meticulously discriminate…

‘OpenAI says its products are saving professional workers up to an hour a day, according to a survey, as the ChatGPT maker looks to shore up its position as the enterprise AI platform of choice amid a growing challenge from Google.’ Link: https://qz.com/openai-says-chatgpt-saving-workers-hour-day-google-gemini-anthropic

‘Disney is hedging against the future. OpenAI is clearing a path for Sora. And together they’ve made a blueprint for how AI and Hollywood can move forward.’ Link: https://www.wired.com/story/disney-and-openais-deal-is-a-major-turning-point/

‘More lawyers are using artificial intelligence to write legal briefs. Some colleagues are publicizing the A.I.-generated errors.’ Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/business/lawyers-ai-vigilantes.html

‘While there has been extensive consideration of whether generative artificial intelligence (GAI) developers infringe copyright when scraping online works to train their systems, there has been limited analysis of the legal status and treatment of the underlying shadow libraries, which facilitate such infringement.’ Link: https://doi.org/10.1093/jiplp/jpaf072

‘More than 100 UK parliamentarians are calling on the government to introduce binding regulations on the most powerful AI systems as concern grows that ministers are moving too slowly to create safeguards in the face of lobbying from the technology industry.’ Link: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/dec/08/scores-of-uk-parliamentarians-join-call-to-regulate-most-powerful-ai-systems

‘OpenAI’s new guidelines ask its chatbot to celebrate “innovation,” contradicting its stated goal of objectivity—and raising questions about what objectivity even means.’ Link: https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025/12/chatgpts-self-serving-optimism/685165/

‘Economist and techno-optimist Noah Smith, author of the Noahpinion Substack, joins Offline to debate the promise of artificial intelligence, the benefits of online fragmentation (could it be good for our society?) and whether liberal nationalism is feasible—and a good thing. Though Noah and Jon differ on a lot of “Offline” themes, they find common ground…

‘In this entertaining and illuminating article, based on his very well received presentation at the BIALL Conference in Birmingham, Matthew Leopold explains the role of trust in magic, the law and AI. He goes on to assert that law librarians are the guardians of truth and accuracy, so we need to be at the forefront of checking…

‘Artificial intelligence is pretty good at taking law school exams, according to a growing body of research. Should it be used to grade them?’ Link: https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/ai-earns-high-marks-law-school-grading-2025-12-09/

‘Francesca Whitelaw KC highlights key points from recent guidance and authorities on the use of AI in legal practice.’ Link: https://www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk/information-law/344-information-law-features/99247-judging-the-use-of-ai

‘Schools across the UK are trialling the use of deepfake teachers and even employing remote staff to deliver lessons hundreds of miles away from the classroom.’ Link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn9813x0vzdo

‘OpenAI is officially rolling out its latest model, o3-mini, starting today, Friday, Jan. 31. The company shared the news in a blog post on its website, just over a month after officially announcing the model during its “12 Days of OpenAI.”‘ Link: https://lifehacker.com/tech/openais-o3-mini-model-rolling-out-now

‘Many property disputes “could be amenable to machine-made decision-making” in the future, the Master of the Rolls (MR) has predicted.’ Link: https://www.legalfutures.co.uk/latest-news/vos-eyes-machine-made-decisions-for-property-disputes

Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Xa3JiFooq3YpnOoeuHn-t6TZWN5uaZaj/view

‘The UK government is partnering with Google DeepMind through a non-legally binding memorandum of understanding to use artificial intelligence (AI) to help deliver scientific breakthroughs and smarter public services.’ Link: https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366636163/Google-DeepMind-partners-with-UK-government-to-deliver-AI

‘The EU has opened an investigation to assess whether Google is breaching European competition rules in its use of online content from publishers and YouTube creators for artificial intelligence.’ Link: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/dec/09/eu-investigation-google-ai-models-gemini

Link” https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2025/1570.html

‘A single person claims to have authored 113 academic papers on artificial intelligence this year, 89 of which will be presented this week at one of the world’s leading conferences on AI and machine learning, which has raised questions among computer scientists about the state of AI research.’ Link: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/dec/06/ai-research-papers

‘Amother has been absolved by the Court of Appeal of any intention to mislead the court after her ‘erroneous’ authority citation in a family court case.’ Link: https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/mothers-use-of-ai-entirely-understandable-court-of-appeal-finds/5125382.article

‘The speed of development and use of artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly increasing. While the potential for AI to contribute to tackling global challenges, including climate change and biodiversity is widely acknowledged, various socio-ecological impacts arise during the lifecycle of AI. Such impacts arise from the extraction of rare earth elements in the manufacture of…

‘Artificial Intelligence is transforming justice systems worldwide, offering new possibilities to improve ac-cess to justice, streamline case management, and assist judicial decision-making. Yet, these innovations also bring complex ethical and human rights challenges. UNESCO’s Guidelines for the Use of AI in Courts and Tribunals present the first global ethical and operational framework to ensure that…

‘In the introduction, this Guidance note announces that “It updates and replaces the guidance document issued in April 2025”, which shows the speed at which AI is developing. It “sets out key risks and issues associated with using AI and some suggestions for minimising them”. And there have indeed been problems facing the judiciary lately…

‘A High Court judge who found AI-generated authorities in the submissions of a litigant in person has warned any lawyer who may have secretly helped her that they could face contempt proceedings.’ Link: https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/warning-to-lawyers-helping-lip-with-ai-generated-authorities/5125323.article

‘ChatGPT-5 is offering dangerous and unhelpful advice to people experiencing mental health crises, some of the UK’s leading psychologists have warned.’ Link: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/nov/30/chatgpt-dangerous-advice-mentally-ill-psychologists-openai

‘Artificial intelligence does not simply fall from the sky. Its development, hardware production and everyday operation consume vast amounts of electricity, water and other resources. Yet tech companies remain reluctant to disclose the true costs to people and the environment. Here, we provide an overview of the issue.’ Link: https://algorithmwatch.org/en/climate-ai/

‘Advancements in human genetics and genomics have been continually impacting basic human rights and fundamental freedoms, including privacy, confidentiality, non-discrimination, and human dignity. The increased application of artificial intelligence (AI) to human genetics and genomics has intensified these concerns in recent years. AI technology that poses risks to human existence and which continually challenges (and…

‘Applicants for graduate jobs at Mishcon de Reya are to make their initial contact with the London firm through a chatbot rather than the traditional application form.  Candidates for the 2026 graduate recruitment scheme will send in enough basic information to start a conversation which artificial intelligence will turn into a tailored interview, the firm said.’…

‘Jorja Smith’s record label has called for a share of the royalties from a TikTok-viral song that it claims used an AI-cloned version of the British singer’s voice.’ Link: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/dec/01/jorja-smiths-label-requests-share-of-royalties-from-ai-cloned-tiktok-viral-song

Link: https://www.barcouncilethics.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Considerations-when-using-ChatGPT-and-generative-artificial-intelligence-Nov-2025.pdf

‘The chief justice of the high court says judges around Australia are acting as “human filters” for legal arguments created using AI, warning the use of machine-generated content has reached unsustainable levels in the courts.’ Link: https://www.theguardian.com/law/2025/nov/21/judges-have-become-human-filters-as-ai-in-australian-courts-reaches-unsustainable-phase-chief-justice-says

‘Britain’s first AI police virtual assistant has been launched in a bid to provide a new way for the public to contact them.’ Link: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/police-ai-virtual-assistant-bobbi-b2872380.html

‘While fake cases generated by artificial intelligence (AI) has become a problem for courts around the world, a judge in the US has faced the next frontier: deepfake videos submitted as evidence.’ Link: https://www.legalfutures.co.uk/latest-news/the-next-frontier-of-ai-in-the-courts-deepfake-video-evidence

‘AI-generated text often has a certain je-ne-sais-quoi of monotony and blandness, whatever model is used. An attempt to put a number on this phenomenon shows once more that measuring meaning is close to impossible.’ Link: https://algorithmwatch.org/en/are-all-llms-the-same-i-set-out-to-measure-their-similarity/

‘Large language models and advanced AI tools are transforming legal education, prompting a strategic reassessment of teaching methodologies and assessment practices. While these technologies enhance legal research and drafting, their rapid adoption underscores the need to refocus legal training on core human competencies. This article argues that AI integration reinforces, rather than diminishes, the need…

‘Jess and Rob are joined by Dr Andrew Cox, an internationally respected expert in the use of AI within the Information Professions. Dr Cox is Senior Lecturer at University of Sheffield’s School of Information, Journalism and Communications. In this episode he shares insights from his latest research into AI use by library, knowledge management and…