Plain Thinking Archive | AI, Technology and the Law

The Florida Supreme Court building in Tallahassee, with palm trees flanking its columned entrance.

October 30, 2026 Issue 58

AI’s Paperwork Problem

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Jay Baumgardner, a Muso.AI co-founder and opposing litigant in a Delaware case, at a recording console.

October 27, 2026 Issue 57

To Protect, or Not to Protect (Claude Chats)

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Brazil’s Superior Court of Justice plenary chamber, with curved wooden benches and a large hand-and-eye artwork on the wall.

October 23, 2026 Issue 56

More Brazilian lawyers try to trick court AI; World Wide Web Woes

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A court clerk assists a visitor at Santa Barbara County Superior Court.

October 20, 2026 Issue 55

Lost in translation

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John Joseph Moakley U.S. Courthouse in Boston.

October 16, 2026 Issue 54

AI evidence rules remain unsettled

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Shmuley Boteach speaking into a microphone at a 2014 event.

October 13, 2026 Issue 53

‘America’s Rabbi’ Is Fighting for His Prompts

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A ChatGPT billboard on a building in San Francisco beneath a cloudy blue sky.

October 9, 2026 Issue 52

Mathematics D-Day; Hacking Korean Finance; Claude Gets Basic Respect

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A Flock Safety license-plate reader mounted beneath a solar panel against a blue sky.

October 6, 2026 Issue 51

Judge Rejects Warrantless Plate Tracking; Claude Chats Reach Police

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An AI-generated likeness of Christopher Pelkey in the video played at sentencing.

October 2, 2026 Issue 50

AI Victim Video Upends Sentence; California Sets Rules for Lawyers

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The east courtroom at the Howard M. Metzenbaum U.S. Courthouse in Cleveland.

September 29, 2026 Issue 49

AI Evidence Rules Return; OpenAI Reviews Incidents; Love Songs in Court

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A U.S. Diplomatic Security Service forensic examiner works with a mobile device.

September 25, 2026 Issue 48

Feds Charge Forensics Executives; Ohio Sets Drone Rules; Copilot in Court

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The Byron White U.S. Courthouse in Denver, home of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

September 22, 2026 Issue 47

Tenth Circuit Weighs AI Rule; Z.ai Grabs Users’ Code; AI Training Gap

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September 18, 2026 Issue 46

Misbehaving AI

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Jacob Coxon appearing on Fox News beneath the headline Development Danger.

September 15, 2026 Issue 45

AI Safety Warnings and Promises of Outside Review

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The empty New Mexico Supreme Court bench in Santa Fe.

September 11, 2026 Issue 44

Murder Appeal Disrupted by Hallucinations, Pt. II

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Entrance to the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse in Manhattan.

September 8, 2026 Issue 43

Uh Oh, Prosecutors

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Close-up view of a Flock Safety automated license plate reader mounted above a road sign against a blue sky.

September 4, 2026 Issue 42

Mass. Flock Exodus

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Two Flock Safety automated license plate reader cameras mounted beneath a solar panel beside a road.

September 1, 2026 Issue 41

Texas Cuts Off Flock; Judges Using AI; Synthetic CSAM Arrests

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A close-up view of a Skydio drone flying against a blue sky.

August 28, 2026 Issue 40

Counter-Droning Tennis

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A Flock Safety automated license plate reader camera mounted beneath a solar panel against a blue sky.

August 25, 2026 Issue 39

Flock’s Bad Week

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Cambridge City Hall in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with its clock tower rising above the main entrance.

August 21, 2026 Issue 38

ShotSpotter, Too?

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Column chart showing U.S. launch and list prices for NVIDIA 6000-class workstation GPUs rising from $4,650 in December 2020 to $16,000 in August 2026.

August 18, 2026 Issue 37

Dearth of Drone Law; Local Machines, Local Models

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Bar chart showing the new drone tariffs by category: 100 percent for sensitive drones, 25 percent for smaller drones and parts, 15 percent for specified allies, and 10 percent for qualifying United Kingdom products.

August 14, 2026 Issue 36

Fresh Tariffs on Drones; Cyber Risk Widening

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Timeline chart using the OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta logos to show when their reported cybersecurity incidents became public: July 21, July 30 and August 6, 2026.

August 11, 2026 Issue 35

Breaking the Internet Bonds; Municipal Malware

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Polling chart showing that Americans see promise in medical AI but remain wary: 60 percent would be uncomfortable with AI in their own healthcare, 40 percent think it would reduce provider mistakes, and 75 percent worry providers will move too fast.

August 7, 2026 Issue 34

AI Listening to Depositions; Shakeup at DeepMind

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Horizontal bar chart showing notable AI models since 2023 by the originating organization’s country: 228 for the United States, 109 for China, 14 for South Korea, 10 each for France and the United Kingdom, and 9 for Singapore.

August 4, 2026 Issue 33

DNA Files at Risk; Five Louisiana AI Laws Take Hold

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Bar chart comparing the token counts of five named English editions: the King James Bible, the Pickthall Quran, the Edwin Arnold Bhagavad Gita, the Max Muller Dhammapada and the James Legge Tao Te Ching.

July 31, 2026 Issue 32

Water Systems Attacked; xAI Tests Another Legal Front

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Bar chart comparing Kirkland and Ellis's planned $500 million internal AI build with single 2026 funding rounds for four businesses that combine AI software and legal services: $120 million for Norm AI and Norm Law, and $60 million each for Crosby, Manifest OS and Manifest Law, and Lawhive.

July 28, 2026 Issue 31

AI Preemption in Texas; Agents on the Non-Emergency Line

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Horizontal bar chart comparing how long selected mathematics problems remained unresolved, highlighting Anthropic Fable and OpenAI GPT-5.6 Sol on the two problems resolved in 2026.

July 24, 2026 Issue 30

Peeking Behind the Report-Writing Curtain; Transcript Trouble

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List of the 13 technologies covered by the ACLU of Massachusetts model discovery motions, plus one generalized motion for tools not yet identified.

July 21, 2026 Issue 29

Motion Bank for MA Defenders; Body Cam Translates

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Bar chart showing the leading uses of AI chatbots for news across 45 markets in 2026: follow-up questions, latest news, summaries, source-reliability checks and easier explanations.

July 17, 2026 Issue 28

User Sued by xAI; UAE Whitelisted for AI Exports

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Bar chart showing maximum unified memory in Apple Ultra chips rising from 128 gigabytes in the M1 Ultra to a rumored 1.5 terabytes in the M7 Ultra.

July 14, 2026 Issue 27

Hash-Match Split Deepens; CJIS 6.1 Arrives

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Chart comparing Illinois and proposed federal reporting deadlines for critical AI safety incidents: 72 hours under Illinois law, 15 days under the federal discussion draft, and 24 hours under both for an imminent risk of death or serious injury.

July 10, 2026 Issue 26

Robotaxis at Emergency Scenes; Two AI Incident Clocks

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Chart showing 3,558 SFPD drone deployments from January through May 2026, with monthly totals ranging from 678 to 776.

July 7, 2026 Issue 25

More States Adding AI Ethics Rules; San Francisco Drone Deploys

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Chart showing how many full copies of classic law-school opinions fit inside a one-million-token AI context window.

July 3, 2026 Issue 24

U.S. Lifts Export Controls; Token-Counting International Shoe

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Chart showing the largest reported U.S. monetary consequences tied to AI-hallucinated or fake legal authorities.

June 30, 2026 Issue 23

SCOTUS Rules on Geofence Warrants; Top Hallucination Costs

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Editorial graphic showing the case-specific facial-recognition discovery ordered produced in State v. Miles, while proprietary source code was not automatically required at that stage.

June 26, 2026 Issue 22

Defense Gets Basic FRT Info in NJ; AI Lawyer Prepares Trial

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What Connecticut's AI Law Covers: AI companions, employment AI, generated media, youth social media, frontier AI, and state AI programs.

June 23, 2026 Issue 21

AI in the Department; Connecticut Passes Sweeping Regulation

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June 19, 2026 Issue 20

Child Safety and Chatbots; Mixed Bag on AI Discovery Rulings

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Shows About Deepfakes and Synthetic Media: The Morning Show, Black Mirror: Joan Is Awful, Deep Fake Love, and The Capture.

June 16, 2026 Issue 19

U.S. Abruptly Shutters New AI Model; Deepfakes in Schools

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Anthropic model family tree showing Claude Opus 4.6 on February 5, 2026; Claude Opus 4.7 on April 16, 2026; Claude Opus 4.8 on May 28, 2026; and Claude Fable 5 on June 9, 2026.

June 12, 2026 Issue 18

Novel Safety Controls on New AI; Solo Builder Boom

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June 9, 2026 Issue 17

AI Arriving in Waves; "Sovereign" as Tech Term

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June 5, 2026 Issue 16

AI Leaders Watching Out for Biotech; Scam Enforcement Progress

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Cyber tips involving generative AI rose from 4,700 in 2023 to 67,000 in 2024 and 1.5 million in 2025, according to NCMEC.

June 2, 2026 Issue 15

AI in Expert Workflows; Child Safety Bill Battle

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May 29, 2026 Issue 14

AI Reports Met Officers; Law-Firm Spend Rising

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May 26, 2026 Issue 13

AI Sanctions Follow; AI Therapy

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May 22, 2026 Issue 12

Smart Glasses in Court; More Death Suits

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May 19, 2026 Issue 11

AI for Probation; More Buzzwords

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May 15, 2026 Issue 10

Six Minutes to Attack; $8 Million AI Music Fraud

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May 12, 2026 Issue 9

Changing Professional Conduct; Deepfakes Abound

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May 8, 2026 Issue 8

AI Disrupts Murder Appeal; Reverse Turing Test

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May 5, 2026 Issue 7

AI Turned Academic; Pet Scams Spreading

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May 1, 2026 Issue 6

When Agents Confess; The $10,000 Soulmate

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April 28, 2026 Issue 5

AI-Washing Crackdown; CSAM Reports Spike

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April 24, 2026 Issue 4

Florida Probes ChatGPT; Connecticut Pauses AI Reports

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April 21, 2026 Issue 3

An AI at the Other End; CJIS 6.1 on the Horizon

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April 17, 2026 Issue 2

Powerful New AI Models; Old Routers at Issue

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April 13, 2026 Issue 1

Ohio Obtains First Conviction; AI Blunder in North Dakota

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