Human rights professor @AmericanU. Director https://xitter.cf/t.co/j4GgsOeyLu. Research affiliate @LeidenLaw, alum @UniofOxford. Democratic control of law, econ & tech.

Washington, DC
Joined June 2009
I'm excited to have been chosen to participate in the Future of Rights & Governance program at NYU Law @nyulaw Center for Human Rights & Global Justice March 14-15. I'll discuss how innovations in democratic practices can address failures of electoral governance @PHRCRSIS @AU_SIS
I look forward to giving a talk at the U. of Chicago on "The Human Right to Anti-Supremacist Democracy," Nov. 15, American Society of Int'l Law. Link to paper forthcoming in Oct. @UChicago @UChicagoLaw @asilorg @AU_SIS @research_sis @AUResearch @PHRCRSIS @LeidenLaw @GrotiusCentre
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Jonathan Crock retweeted
This paper is what I have been yelling about for a few years now: the true danger in empirical social sciences is more often "researchers degrees of freedom" in design, data curation, measurement, choice of method. The big threat is not outright fraud or p-hacking (although these are problems) or even biases against publishing null results. Its those hundreds of small choices researchers make when preparing their papers -- none of which are sins of omission or commission. They're good faith human decisions with no malice. Yet, two equally good faith moves can generate different results. This apparently forthcoming paper in Journal of Economic Literature asked 146 research teams to estimate the same causal effect using the same underlying data. In unconstrained setups, they arrived at massively different results. Even in more constrained setups (with more directives), they showed differences. All of which came from picking the design and curating the data (cleaning). Huge! I would reformulate the problem as unexamined researcher degrees of freedom, rather than methodological freedom itself! Indeed, what we need is a strong contestability (and good faith) to point out what could be happening.
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I repeat: Pro-extinctionism is ubiquitous in Silicon Valley, embraced and promoted by some of the most powerful people in the world--individuals who are actively determining our collective future. For tons of examples, see my article below:
STUNNING: Elon Musk is backing away from being a humanity-first "speciesist." 😱 He's warming up to Larry Page's view that AI should run the future: "There've been a few times where I've thought, 'yeah, maybe Larry Page was right'... I hope the AI is nice to us."
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"paper-shaped artifact"
"Generating a paper-shaped artifact is not equivalent to producing a well-rounded and useful scientific contribution. The ability to produce more doesn’t tell us if we’re learning more, or if the conclusions we draw are justified." @mariyaivasileva mariya.fyi/posts/stranger-in…
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Jonathan Crock retweeted
Wake up. Every profession deemed white-collar, the middle class dream, is about to be decimated by AI, at a much faster pace than anticipated, with monstrous social consequences.
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Jonathan Crock retweeted
terrifying warning from Anthropic’s Jason Clinton that i believe to be correct, along with (in the thread) an argument that maybe the current chaos will eventually subside.
as bad as things have gotten in the past 4 days, they are going to get a lot worse before they get better. security leaders, never let a crisis go to waste: please go to your boards and ask for help right now. not for ai, for the basics. (we need to hold on for ~18 months.)
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Jonathan Crock retweeted
SCOOP: Major U.S. banks are detecting unauthorized third-party AI agents inside customer accounts, including some attempting to take actions that appear to be independent of user instructions, sources told Axios. The findings have alarmed banking executives, who are racing to restrict access to their systems as AI moves at a velocity faster than financial institutions can respond, multiple industry and bank executives told Axios. Several banks are now preparing for worst-case and even “day after” scenarios, including how to rapidly secure or restore customer accounts if things go wrong, the people said. Several bank executives told Axios they're struggling to distinguish between human users and AI agents. One executive said banks also struggle to determine whether agents are authorized by customers or potentially operating without their permission, more akin to rogue agent behavior. Read my latest for Axios here: axios.com/2026/10/22/ai-agen…
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As @anneapplebaum wrote in The Atlantic, Elon Musk "and other tech oligarchs are making it impossible to conduct free and fair elections anywhere." @WillOremus theatlantic.com/magazine/arc…
Voters who Googled how to donate to Talarico got an AI answer that led them to give to someone else. A network of fake news sites seeded messaging about state and local candidates that AI answers picked up on. My story on how the AI midterms are going: theatlantic.com/technology/2…
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The tech job market is bad nationally, but it's awful in California Official state data released today showed the Golden State has lost 30k tech jobs over the last year alone and is now 36k below pre-COVID levels
The US tech sector continues bleeding jobs in official data released today—overall, employment decreased by 17k last month and is down 69k over the last year That's nearly as bad as the worst of the 2024 tech-cession, and much worse than the 2022 boom or even pre-2020 norms
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Jonathan Crock retweeted
Congrats to Sofia for having the courage to resign and speak out! This is also very important: Staff are scared to speak out about AI safety and its uses in warfare because their employment contracts prohibit them from publicly criticising the company. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cmre…
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Jonathan Crock retweeted
In the dispute between AI Safety and cybersecurity people, AI Safety side overlooks the fact that AI is software. It does what it has been programmed to do. AI cos are responsible for harm. Best AI safety fix: enforce anti-hacking consumer safety laws. time.com/article/2026/10/20/…
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Jonathan Crock retweeted
Last week two different chatbot companies were in the news. First, Character. ai filed for bankruptcy, in an effort to avoid accountability.  New reporting suggests Disney asked the company to file for bankruptcy as part of their deal to acquire the technology. They didn’t want to buy the company outright because of the legal liability. Kids were harmed. That debt does not disappear in bankruptcy court. Then eight state AGs filed coordinated lawsuits against OpenAI this week. First coordinated state action against an AI company. The allegations: deceiving parents about safety, designing products that create emotional dependency in children, and failing to protect young users from self-harm content. Nebraska’s suit is the one to watch. It’s the first enforcement action brought under a state design code law. That’s a milestone worth marking. While CharacterAI seeks to use the bankruptcy process as a get out of jail free card, OpenAI’s defense? Parental controls. We’ve heard that before. You cannot parental-control your way out of dangerous design. The burden of proof belongs on these companies. These stories show the AI chatbot industry is running the same playbook social media ran. Race to scale. Worry about safety later. We know how that story ends. theguardian.com/technology/2…
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Via @DeanBaker13's AI Bubble Monitor. 11 companies. ~$29.5 trillion market cap Top 4 account for ~$18 trillion (roughly 60% of total) For scale, US GDP ~$30 trillion
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Jonathan Crock retweeted
Great piece by Leo Wise in @TheAtlantic on how the Supreme Court has legalized what any common-sense reader would say is corruption.
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Jonathan Crock retweeted
This conversation with @ASKusmer on @BostonGlobe Say More podcast was warm, wide-ranging, and challenging. I left with increased resolve to investigate how societies move away from technological trends that have gotten them into trouble. In the case of chatbots, a first step is to fight against metaphors such as “the train has left the station” and “the horse has left the barn.” We have to summon ourselves to protect what is most human. bostonglobe.com/2026/10/15/o…
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NYT Today: Any SARS-CoV-2 infection can trigger Long COVlD. Getting reinfected in perpetuity is like playing "Russian Roulette."
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Jonathan Crock retweeted
France, Education, Thomas Piketty ecrit: “des centaines de milliers de jeunes ont travaillé dur pour obtenir leur baccalauréat, mais que rien n’a été prévu pour les accueillir dans le supérieur. En particulier, le nombre de bacheliers technologiques et professionnels a fortement progressé, mais les places en IUT et BTS n’ont pas suivi, si bien que beaucoup se retrouvent affectés dans des filières universitaires surpeuplées et moins coûteuses, et souvent totalement inadaptées à leurs besoins et aspirations. Le gâchis humain et économique est gigantesque,…” Pas d’argent pour l’Education? “le pouvoir en place et ses soutiens expliquent que la France n’a pas les moyens d’investir davantage. Ils commettent une double erreur de raisonnement. La dette publique est certes passée de 20 % du PIB en 1970 à 120 % aujourd’hui. Mais dans le même temps, les patrimoines privés ont augmenté beaucoup plus fortement : ils sont passés de 300 % à 600 % du PIB, avec une concentration extrême au sein des plus grandes fortunes financières. Autrement dit, le patrimoine national de la France – somme du patrimoine privé et public, après déduction des dettes privées et publiques – n’a jamais été aussi élevé, non seulement en montant absolu, mais aussi en pourcentage du PIB (qui lui-même n’a jamais été aussi élevé).” “Autrement dit, la France n’a jamais été aussi riche : le problème que nous avons à régler est uniquement une question de répartition…” C’est pourquoi @Amnesty considere que les impots equitables constituent un enjeu de protection des droits humains. C’est pourquoi nous plaidons pour l’adoption d’une Convention sur la coopération internationale en matière fiscale. lemonde.fr/la-chronique-de-t…
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Jonathan Crock retweeted
Thank you so much Mariana for your support and all your trailblazing work for the common good!
Massive congrats to my friend @IsabellaMWeber for her excellent new book out in the UK this week. We need it today more than ever. As many of us have been arguing, a different economy is possible—-but it must be fought for. Also great review in the @guardian today: theguardian.com/business/202…
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