Workshop on “A Definition of AGI”

Dan Hendrycks et al., A Definition of AGI, available at https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.18212.

This is a synthetic academic workshop generated using enTalkenator (using an AI-generated interdisciplinary workshop template and authored by Google Gemini 2.5 Pro).

Abstract: “The lack of a concrete definition for Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) obscures the gap between today's specialized AI and human-level cognition. This paper introduces a quantifiable framework to address this, defining AGI as matching the cognitive versatility and proficiency of a well-educated adult. To operationalize this, we ground our methodology in Cattell-Horn-Carroll theory, the most empirically validated model of human cognition. The framework dissects general intelligence into ten core cognitive domains-including reasoning, memory, and perception-and adapts established human psychometric batteries to evaluate AI systems. Application of this framework reveals a highly ‘jagged’ cognitive profile in contemporary models. While proficient in knowledge-intensive domains, current AI systems have critical deficits in foundational cognitive machinery, particularly long-term memory storage. The resulting AGI scores (e.g., GPT-4 at 27%, GPT-5 at 58%) concretely quantify both rapid progress and the substantial gap remaining before AGI.”

Workshop on Coan’s “The Appellate Void”

Andrew Coan, The Appellate Void.

Solum’s Download of the Week for October 17, 2025. Available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5571120.

This is a synthetic academic workshop generated using enTalkenator (Workshop Hot Bench template, using Gemini 2.5 Pro).

Abstract: “What would it actually look like for the executive branch to defy a court order? The standard picture involves a dramatic confrontation between the President and the Supreme Court. But recent events suggest a more mundane possibility that has been largely overlooked: After an adverse ruling, the government might simply ignore the district court’s order and refuse to appeal. As the prevailing party, the plaintiffs could not appeal. The result would be an appellate void, in which lower federal courts lack effective tools for enforcing their decisions against a recalcitrant executive and higher courts lack any obvious path to intervene.

This Article provides the first map of this unfamiliar terrain. It explains the jurisdictional dynamics that create the appellate void and why contempt sanctions offer little practical remedy. It then analyzes why a President might find this strategy tempting: confronting a single district judge rather than the Supreme Court fundamentally changes the politics of interbranch conflict. In effect, the appellate void constitutes a reverse Marbury v. Madison. Instead of the Supreme Court asserting the power of judicial review, while leaving the President powerless to push back, the President would assert the power to defy the federal courts, while leaving the Supreme Court powerless to respond. The Court’s recent decision in Trump v. CASA, Inc., opens the door to a more subtle variant of this strategy. After CASA, an administration could comply with court orders only as to specific plaintiffs, while continuing to enforce the challenged policies against everyone else. By refusing to appeal, the President would deny higher courts any opportunity to weigh in, without actually defying any binding judicial order.

These scenarios are not inevitable. Courts and litigants have many potential responses. But if successful, the appellate void strategy would have dramatic implications for judicial review, separation of powers, and the rule of law.”

Workshop on Ahmed’s “The Two Faces of Representation”

Ashraf Ahmed, The Two Faces of Representation.

Solum’s Download of the Week for October 10, 2025. Available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5122328.

This is a synthetic academic workshop generated using enTalkenator (Workshop Hot Bench template, using Claude Sonnet 4.5).

Abstract: “In pluralistic democracies, representation is the process that mediates difference and translates the preferences of free and equal citizens into political will. Despite broad judicial and scholarly agreement that representation is central to election law, the Supreme Court is deeply ambivalent in how it treats the concept. This Article explains this ambivalence and shows its theoretical stakes for the field and public law more generally. It argues that the Court’s approach to representation is Janus-faced. Its first face, which it terms the ‘skeptical tradition’ is decidedly anti-theoretical. Largely confined to the Fourteenth Amendment, the skeptical tradition counsels the Court against deciding cases that require theorizing representation for epistemic, institutional, and interpretive reasons. The Article then turns to the second face of representation where the Court, under the First Amendment, routinely theorizes core facets of representation. In cases regulating campaign finance and the associational rights of parties, the Court expounds on the formation of public opinion, the relative standing and efficacy of different speakers, the nature of representational failure, and the role of political parties. The two faces of representation thus reveal a deep disjuncture between the Court’s self-conception and its actual work.

Beyond its descriptive insight, this Article also makes a further theoretical claim: the skeptical tradition must be rejected on jurisprudential grounds. Taken to its extreme, the skeptical tradition threatens any judicial role in election law doctrine, since it would entail judicial abstention in any case that involved theorizing representation. By rejecting the skeptical tradition, this Article both shows how to preserve the jurisprudential integrity of election law doctrine and reaffirms in a more conceptually grounded way an enduring lesson of the field: the need for judges to theorize representation to decide election law cases. Regardless of doctrinal silos, election law is unified by its underlying object: political representation. The two faces offer two further lessons about public law. First, the case of representation is an example of a more general conceptual demand for a theory of the regulated object. When judges apply a general legal principle to a specific entity, whether it is an institution, individual, or process, they need some account of the object being regulated. Second, the conceptual demands of election law pose a problem for theories of judicial minimalism in constitutional law, especially for the notion of ‘incompletely theorized agreements.’ The two faces suggest that theoretical minimalism is both descriptively naïve, because it misses implicit theoretical work in the mine-run of cases, and normatively vulnerable, since conceptual shortfalls in election law—descriptive or normative—can be democratic deficits, insofar as election law seeks to constitute the democratic process. Ultimately, this Article suggests a theoretical reckoning is in order for election law doctrine.”

Workshop on Bray’s “Remedies in the Officer Removal Cases”

Samuel L. Bray, Remedies in the Office Removal Cases.

Solum’s Download of the Week for October 3, 2025. Available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5515261.

This is a synthetic academic workshop generated using enTalkenator (Workshop Hot Bench template, using Claude Sonnet 4.5).

Abstract: “When a federal officer challenges her removal by the president, what forms of interim relief and what final remedies are available? This Article considers those questions. It shows that the appropriate remedy for a prevailing officer will typically be a declaratory one, either a declaratory judgment or quo war-ranto. The interim relief question is harder. The suggestion here is that if an officer sues immediately to challenge her removal, and remains the de facto officer, there should be a presumption that the district court should prevent her removal during the pendency of the litigation. But if the officer fails to sue immediately, and is no longer the de facto officer, the presumption should be against any interim relief. This suggestion is subject to some qualifications, but it would prevent “flipping” back and forth during the liti-gation with respect to who occupies the office and exercises its powers. These presumptions are supported by historical practice with respect to injunctions and quo warranto, by equitable considerations such as laches, and by norma-tive concerns that are especially strong in the officer-removal context.”

Workshop on Tsesis’s “Originalist Framing Of Free Speech Doctrine”

Alexander Tsesis, Originalist Framing Of Free Speech Doctrine.

Solum’s Download of the Week for September 20, 2025. Available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5317849.

This is a synthetic academic workshop generated using enTalkenator (Workshop Hot Bench template, using Claude Sonnet 4).

Abstract: “The Supreme Court has increasingly signaled the importance of history and tradition to constitutional interpretation. Reliance on original meaning and understanding appears in a broad array of cases that stretch the gamut from abortion and gun rights. Often those references, however, sound conclusory rather than the careful articulation and contextualization of constitutional norms.

The newest trend on the Court has led some scholars to argue that the meaning of constitutional provisions, phrases, and clauses is tied almost exclusively to views of nation’s founders or to the linguistic understandings of the American people at fixed events of the nation’s constitutional development, such as at the points of ratification of the Bill or Rights or Reconstruction Amendments.

This Essay demonstrates that, at least in the area of free speech law, the Supreme Court’s recent efforts to connect doctrine to original meaning are on shaky historical ground. Indeed, a purely originalist interpretation of the First Amendment would undermine core doctrines of free expression.”

Interdisciplinary Workshop on “Genome Language Models”

Samuel H. King, Claudia L. Driscoll, David B. Li, Daniel Guo, Aditi T. Merchant, Garyk Brixi, Max E. Wilkinson, and Brian L. Hie, Generative design of novel bacteriophages with genome language models, available at https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.12.675911v1.

This is a synthetic academic workshop generated using enTalkenator (using an AI-generated interdisciplinary workshop template and authored by Google Gemini 2.5 Pro).

Abstract: “Many important biological functions arise not from single genes, but from complex interactions encoded by entire genomes. Genome language models have emerged as a promising strategy for designing biological systems, but their ability to generate functional sequences at the scale of whole genomes has remained untested. Here, we report the first generative design of viable bacteriophage genomes. We leveraged frontier genome language models, Evo 1 and Evo 2, to generate whole-genome sequences with realistic genetic architectures and desirable host tropism, using the lytic phage ΦX174 as our design template. Experimental testing of AI-generated genomes yielded 16 viable phages with substantial evolutionary novelty. Cryo-electron microscopy revealed that one of the generated phages utilizes an evolutionarily distant DNA packaging protein within its capsid. Multiple phages demonstrate higher fitness than ΦX174 in growth competitions and in their lysis kinetics. A cocktail of the generated phages rapidly overcomes ΦX174-resistance in three E. coli strains, demonstrating the potential utility of our approach for designing phage therapies against rapidly evolving bacterial pathogens. This work provides a blueprint for the design of diverse synthetic bacteriophages and, more broadly, lays a foundation for the generative design of useful living systems at the genome scale.”

Workshop on Cross’s “The Amended Statute”

Jesse Cross, The Amended Statute.

Solum’s Download of the Week for September 20, 2025. Available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5426276.

This is a synthetic academic workshop generated using enTalkenator (Workshop Hot Bench template, using Gemini 2.5 Pro).

Abstract: “We live in a republic of amended statutes. In each Congress, our laws are amended tens of thousands of times. Individual statutes make amendments that number in the thousands. As a result, the amended statute has become the central democratic text of our age—a remarkable development for a type of document unknown at the Founding. Yet the amended statute has been relegated to an afterthought in legal theory. This is incredible neglect for an essential source of modern law—one that anchors innumerable rights in U.S. society. 

This Article demonstrates that, instead, the amended statute belongs at the center of public law. To that end, it undertakes three projects with respect to the amended statute: documenting, theorizing, and interpreting. 

It begins with documenting. Through a study consisting of over seven hundred searches of the Statutes at Large, it identifies—for the first time—the nearly half-million amendments made to federal statutes since the Founding. In so doing, it tells the story of statutory amendments in U.S. law. It is a story of remarkable transformation: from a statutory corpus with no amendments through the 1830s to one that now undergoes over eight thousand amendments each year. Contemporary statutes, it reveals, typically are amended statutes. 

Next, the Article theorizes amended statutory law. Despite its neglect in current legal theory, the amended statute was transformative. It created a new idea of the ‘statute’ in the United States—introducing a new document, and one with different traits than the traditional statute. The Article theorizes the key changes this introduced into: (1) legislation, (2) the legislative process, (3) the institution of the legislature, and (4) statutory interpretation. These changes include enabling the rise of textualism, making methodological originalism impossible in interpretation, and divorcing the drafter from the legislator. The Article chronicles these many theoretical insights. 

Finally, the Article asks how to interpret amended statutory law. Revisiting two recent classics of statutory interpretation, Niz-Chavez v. Garland and Van Buren v. United States, it uncovers the unknown amendatory stories behind these landmark cases. In so doing, it shows the contemporary Supreme Court's troubling inability to locate democratic decisions beneath the amended statute. And it models a competing method of interpretation—one more appropriate for a republic of amended statutes.”

Workshop on “Plutocratic Democracy, Elon Musk, and the Limits of Campaign Finance Reform”

Guy-Uriel E. Charles & Farris Peale, Plutocratic Democracy, Elon Musk, and the Limits of Campaign Finance Reform.

Solum’s Download of the Week for September 13, 2025. Available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5397907.

This is a synthetic academic workshop generated using enTalkenator (variation of the Workshop template, using Gemini 2.5 Pro).

Abstract: “Politicians appear to be increasingly dependent upon a group of ultra-wealthy elites who not only fund their campaigns but are critical for the functioning of public governance. These ultrawealthy individuals provide the indispensable infrastructure, expertise, and communication that are critical to modern electoral politics. These ultra-wealthy individuals want more than influence, seeking instead to govern even though the voters do not elect them. This chapter describes this process and argues that the campaign finance literature, which is mired in a debate about corruption and equality, is not well-positioned to address this contemporary challenge to representative democracy. The piece refers to this challenge as "plutocratic democracy," and uses Elon Musk as a case study.”

Workshop on Kadri and West’s “Deepfake Torts”

Thomas Kadri and Sonja West, Deepfake Torts: Emerging Tort Frameworks in U.S. Deepfake Regulation.

Solum’s Download of the Week for September 6, 2025. Available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5325857.

This is a synthetic academic workshop generated using enTalkenator (variation of the Workshop template, using Gemini 2.5 Pro).

Abstract: “As deepfake technology becomes increasingly sophisticated and accessible, American lawmakers are responding with a flurry of urgent legislative action to address its potential harms. Our 50-state survey of proposed and enacted deepfake legislation reveals a complex regulatory landscape in which jurisdictions are adopting a range of legal approaches, including criminal punishments, civil remedies, or a combination of methods. We also find that legislators are frequently turning to tort-law frameworks to address the harms of deepfakes.

This article explores the current landscape of tort-based regulations of deepfakes. In addition to providing an overview of the most recent legislative developments, we unpack and compare the various tort-law methods arising at the state and federal level. We further consider how lawmakers are modifying existing tort laws to address the unique concerns raised by deepfakes. While individualistic tort remedies allow victims of deepfakes to seek direct recourse through familiar private rights of action, our analysis also identifies practical and conceptual limitations with this approach. Traditional tort frameworks struggle to address key challenges posed by deepfakes, including anonymous creation, viral distribution at technological scale, and harms affecting both individuals and society broadly.

In light of these limitations, legislators are innovatively adapting traditional tort concepts—such as standing, mental states, causation, immunities, and remedies—to address deepfakes’ unique characteristics. Yet the very need for these adaptations reveals some of tort law’s shortcomings and suggests a space for complementary regulatory approaches. We consider some potential approaches that could provide this more complete framework, like tort liability for entities that enable deepfake creation and circulation, and civil enforcement mechanisms that empower state actors to vindicate both individual and societal interests. Ultimately, our findings suggest that while tort law provides a valuable foundation for addressing deepfake injuries, comprehensive protection will require additional regulatory frameworks beyond traditional tort remedies.”

Workshop on Bradley and Siegel’s “The Supreme Court Under Threat”

Curtis Bradley and Neil Siegel, The Supreme Court Under Threat: Early Lessons in Judicial Self-Protection.

Solum’s Download of the Week for July 19, 2025. Available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5325857.

This is a synthetic academic workshop generated using enTalkenator (variation of the Workshop template, using Gemini 2.5 Pro).

Abstract: “This Essay explores how the U.S. Supreme Court, despite being vulnerable to defiance of its decisions and political retaliation, has developed tools of judicial self-protection to preserve its institutional authority as well as the Constitution and the rule of law. Arguing that the Court performs not only a legal role that requires interpretation of the law but also a political one that demands institutional preservation, the Essay examines how the Court has historically navigated political threats by using a range of tools—including avoidance, delay, narrow rulings, strategic dicta, and rhetorical appeals. The Essay focuses on three nineteenth-century episodes: the Jeffersonian backlash following the election of 1800, Georgia’s defiance in the Cherokee Cases in the 1830s, and controversies over military trials during Reconstruction. In each instance, the Court adjusted its behavior in response to political threats from the Executive, states, or Congress, and it used the tools of self-protection to avoid direct confrontation while maintaining or even enhancing its authority. The Essay acknowledges the risks and imperfections of such an approach including compromised legal reasoning and potential long-term concessions but it contends that the Court must be politically attentive to be effective. It also cautions against formalist critiques of such judicial behavior that overlook the political foundations of judicial power.”

Workshop on surprising findings in “Impact of Early-2025 AI on Experienced Open-Source Developer Productivity”

Joel Becker, Nate Rush, Elizabeth Barnes, David Rein, Measuring the Impact of Early-2025 AI on Experienced Open-Source Developer Productivity.

Available at https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.09089.

This is a synthetic academic workshop generated using enTalkenator (a variation of the Workshop template, using the Google Gemini 2.5 Pro).

Abstract: “Despite widespread adoption, the impact of AI tools on software development in the wild remains understudied. We conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to understand how AI tools at the February-June 2025 frontier affect the productivity of experienced open-source developers. 16 developers with moderate AI experience complete 246 tasks in mature projects on which they have an average of 5 years of prior experience. Each task is randomly assigned to allow or disallow usage of early 2025 AI tools. When AI tools are allowed, developers primarily use Cursor Pro, a popular code editor, and Claude 3.5/3.7 Sonnet. Before starting tasks, developers forecast that allowing AI will reduce completion time by 24%. After completing the study, developers estimate that allowing AI reduced completion time by 20%. Surprisingly, we find that allowing AI actually increases completion time by 19%--AI tooling slowed developers down. This slowdown also contradicts predictions from experts in economics (39% shorter) and ML (38% shorter). To understand this result, we collect and evaluate evidence for 20 properties of our setting that a priori could contribute to the observed slowdown effect--for example, the size and quality standards of projects, or prior developer experience with AI tooling. Although the influence of experimental artifacts cannot be entirely ruled out, the robustness of the slowdown effect across our analyses suggests it is unlikely to primarily be a function of our experimental design.”

Workshop on Toomey’s “Personhood as Participation”

James Toomey, Personhood as Participation.

Solum’s Download of the Week for July 12, 2025. Available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5334704.

This is a synthetic academic workshop generated using enTalkenator (variation of the Workshop template, using Gemini 2.5 Pro).

Abstract: “‘Legal personhood’ is thought to be a concept of foundational and systemic importance to the legal system, encompassing all living human beings, born alive, and certain collectivities called corporations. The problem is that the more one tries to square these uncontroversial intuitions with one another, the less the concept hangs together. Many things that we do not call ‘legal persons’ are treated in legally identical ways to entities that we do call ‘legal persons’—and entities within the class of ‘legal persons’ are treated in radically different ways among themselves. To be sure, we can call anything we want ‘legal persons’—but not without trivializing the concept.

This Chapter makes two claims. First, I argue that the concept of legal personhood, as currently understood, is not doing the work it is widely thought to. There is no account of why some entities are called ‘legal persons’ and others are not—at least not one consistent with the intuition that legal personhood is a systemically significant concept. Second, I argue that there is an organizationally foundational concept at the heart of our notion of legal personhood—the class of entities capable of participating in the law on their own terms. This class, comprised—at the moment and as far as we know—of only roughly cognitively healthy human adults, is narrower than the way in which the term ‘legal person’ is used. But it is a category that captures the foundational organizational role we have long presumed of the concept.”

Workshop on West’s “Taming the Shadow Docket”

E. Garrett West, Taming the Shadow Docket.

Solum’s Download of the Week for July 5, 2025. Available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5329091.

This is a synthetic academic workshop generated using enTalkenator (Workshop Hot Bench template, using Gemini 2.5 Pro).

Abstract: “The Supreme Court's shadow docket is causing a supposed legitimacy crisis. The conventional response is that the Court should change how it processes emergency applications to improve transparency and accountability. But the causes of the shadow docket are structural: various jurisdictional and remedial rules permit lower courts to issue orders of national significance that require the Court either to intervene on the emergency docket or to abandon its supremacy over the federal courts. This paper identifies comprehensive structural reforms, all within the Court's control, that would constrain the power of the lower courts to block national and statewide policies. I discuss ways to limit suits by associations, States, and the United States; constraints on claims brought under Ex parte Young, § 1983, and the APA; and restrictions on the scope of injunctions, preliminary injunctions, APA remedies, and declaratory relief. And I consider the reforms systematically, with different solutions working as complements to reduce the salience of matters that reach the shadow docket. The assessment of structural causes and solutions also suggests the real source of the supposed problem of emergencies at the Supreme Court. Taming the shadow docket requires reducing the power of the federal courts over the political branches. And if disempowering the lower courts would be a solution worse than the problem, then maybe the shadow docket is not even a problem after all. Instead, retaining the power of the courts might mean embracing the shadow docket.”

Workshop on Aditi Bagchi’s “In Search of the Wrongdoer Behind Unjust Pricing”

Aditi Bagchi, In Search of the Wrongdoer Behind Unjust Pricing.

Solum’s Download of the Week for June 28, 2025. Available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5310507.

This is a synthetic academic workshop generated using enTalkenator (a variation of the Workshop template, using Claude Sonnet 4).

Abstract: “This chapter argues that a price can be unjust because it is the product of wrongful conduct by one of the parties to the sale, or because it is the product of an unjust market. In both cases, it is sensible to refer to the price itself as unjust not unlike the way we speak of unjust enrichment. But while the legal concept of unjust enrichment tends to refer only to enrichment that is the product of inequity between two parties, unjust prices should be understood to encompass prices that are the result of both bilateral and systemic wrongs. Some unjust prices are the result of either a bilateral or systemic wrong, but not the other. Some prices reflect both kinds of wrong, and the systemic wrong makes the bilateral wrong possible; in these cases, the background injustice is necessary to characterize the private conduct of a contracting party as wrongful. In other cases, market dysfunction, which may or may not be unjust, partially redeems a price that is prima facie unjust. While the morality of private pricing cannot be assessed without reference to the justice of the background market, because the wrongdoing—and the wrongdoers—behind bilateral and systemic wrongs are distinguishable, the wrongs call for different institutional responses within and outside of contract law.”

Intro Class AND Workshop on “AlphaGenome”

Žiga Avsec et al., AlphaGenome: advancing regulatory variant effect prediction with a unified DNA sequence model.

Available at https://storage.googleapis.com/deepmind-media/papers/alphagenome.pdf.

Something special this week: a synthetic introductory class (at 00:00:00) and a synthetic academic workshop (at 00:24:51), both generated using enTalkenator (using Google Gemini 2.5 Pro). The intro class is generally accessible, but the workshop is a bit more challenging for a lay person.

Abstract: “Deep learning models that predict functional genomic measurements from DNA sequence are powerful tools for deciphering the genetic regulatory code. Existing methods trade off between input sequence length and prediction resolution, thereby limiting their modality scope and performance. We present AlphaGenome, which takes as input 1 megabase of DNA sequence and predicts thousands of functional genomic tracks up to single base pair resolution across diverse modalities – including gene expression, transcription initiation, chromatin accessibility, histone modifications, transcription factor binding, chromatin contact maps, splice site usage, and splice junction coordinates and strength. Trained on human and mouse genomes, AlphaGenome matches or exceeds the strongest respective available external models on 24 out of 26 evaluations on variant effect prediction. AlphaGenome’s ability to simultaneously score variant effects across all modalities accurately recapitulates the mechanisms of clinically-relevant variants near the TAL1 oncogene. To facilitate broader use, we provide tools for making genome track and variant effect predictions from sequence.”

Workshop on “Unwarranted Warrants”

Miguel F.P. de Figueiredo, Brett Hashimoto, and Dane Thorley, Unwarranted Warrants? An Empirical Analysis of Judicial Review in Search and Seizure.

Solum’s Download of the Week for June 21, 2025. Available here at the Harvard Law Review.

This is a synthetic academic workshop generated using enTalkenator (a variation of the Workshop template, using the Google Gemini 2.5 Pro).

Abstract: “Every year, police perform searches governed by the Fourth Amendment on hundreds of thousands of individuals and their property throughout the United States. Many of the academy’s most decorated scholars have focused on the genesis and jurisprudential nature of the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. Surprisingly, we know almost nothing about how the Fourth Amendment regulates searches and how searches actually work in practice. In this Article, we pull back the curtain on the search and seizure process by presenting the largest quantitative study of warrants of any kind. We analyze over 33,000 warrant applications filed through Utah’s “e-Warrants” system over a three-year period. By utilizing the full texts of the warrant affidavits, along with digital timestamp metadata, we categorize warrants by type, length, and complexity and establish when and for how long judges review warrants. Our key findings demonstrate that the warrant review process is fast and nearly always results in approval. Ninety-eight percent of warrant reviews eventually result in an approval, and over 93% are approved on first submission. Further, we find that the median time for review is only three minutes, and that one out of every ten warrants is opened, reviewed, and approved in sixty seconds or less. Our analyses that account for warrant complexity and length also suggest that many approved warrants are either not read carefully or not read in full (or both). We also perform a qualitative analysis of a randomly selected subsample of warrants and find cases where the review process has clearly failed. Taken together, our results have critical implications regarding the warrant review process that force us to reconsider the constitutional nature of probable cause and the role that judicial review plays as a “check” on police searches. In light of these implications, we explore the political, economic, and logistical constraints that judges face when reviewing warrants and consider pathways to reform that are mindful of these factors.”

Workshop on Kosmyna et al. “Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task”

Nataliya Kosmyna, Eugene Hauptmann, Ye Tong Yuan, Jessica Situ, Xian-Hao Liao, Ashly Vivian Beresnitzky, Iris Braunstein, Pattie Maes, Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task.

Available at https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.08872.

This is a synthetic academic workshop generated using enTalkenator (a variation of the Workshop template, using the Google Gemini 2.5 Pro).

Abstract: “This study explores the neural and behavioral consequences of LLM-assisted essay writing. Participants were divided into three groups: LLM, Search Engine, and Brain-only (no tools). Each completed three sessions under the same condition. In a fourth session, LLM users were reassigned to Brain-only group (LLM-to-Brain), and Brain-only users were reassigned to LLM condition (Brain-to-LLM). A total of 54 participants took part in Sessions 1-3, with 18 completing session 4. We used electroencephalography (EEG) to assess cognitive load during essay writing, and analyzed essays using NLP, as well as scoring essays with the help from human teachers and an AI judge. Across groups, NERs, n-gram patterns, and topic ontology showed within-group homogeneity. EEG revealed significant differences in brain connectivity: Brain-only participants exhibited the strongest, most distributed networks; Search Engine users showed moderate engagement; and LLM users displayed the weakest connectivity. Cognitive activity scaled down in relation to external tool use. In session 4, LLM-to-Brain participants showed reduced alpha and beta connectivity, indicating under-engagement. Brain-to-LLM users exhibited higher memory recall and activation of occipito-parietal and prefrontal areas, similar to Search Engine users. Self-reported ownership of essays was the lowest in the LLM group and the highest in the Brain-only group. LLM users also struggled to accurately quote their own work. While LLMs offer immediate convenience, our findings highlight potential cognitive costs. Over four months, LLM users consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels. These results raise concerns about the long-term educational implications of LLM reliance and underscore the need for deeper inquiry into AI's role in learning.”

Workshop on Dinovelli’s “The Federal Reserve Exception”

Benjamin Dinovelli, The Federal Reserve Exception.

Solum’s Download of the Week for June 14, 2025. Available on SSRN.

This is a synthetic academic workshop generated using enTalkenator (a variation of the Workshop template, using the Google Gemini 2.5 Pro). Another interesting and erroneous wrinkle this week. The workshop speaker refers to the Supreme Court’s (very real) recent decision granting a stay in Trump v. Wilcox as “fictional but all-too-plausible.” I’ve again chosen to share this workshop, warts and all. This one is interesting, because the decision came well after the model’s training cut-off. And so it’s of course unaware of the decision. But it’s funny that it inferred “fictional” despite the article’s citations to the stay and discussion indicating the opinions were very much real. I could easily have just made another workshop, adding to the beginning of the article a note that the date is June 14 and that the Supreme Court had recently issued divided opinions in the Wilcox case as described in the article. But this little curiosity was worth leaving as an artifact. Perhaps the model was making a hash of the article’s discussion elsewhere of what the Court “will” do in the future to resolve Wilcox on the merits combined with its lack of knowledge of any such case.

Abstract: “The Federal Reserve is arguably the most powerful administrative agency that has ever existed in the United States.  Its administrative actions influence every facet of life: The cost to buy a new home or car, attend school, and build houses and infrastructure.  Given its significant powers and responsibilities, the Federal Reserve has long had policy independence from the Executive branch—mainly because the Federal Reserve Act prevents the President from firing Federal Reserve officers at will.  But President Trump has fired officers with similar removal protections across the government.  His Administration argues that these removal protections are unconstitutional.  And it appears the Court may agree based on its view of Article II of the Constitution.  If the Court does so, it raises a natural follow-up question: What about the Federal Reserve and its independence?  

In response, many have argued that such concerns are overblown: The Court can create an exception for the Federal Reserve.  Indeed, the Court in Trump v. Wilcox recently indicated it may do so.  It claimed that the Federal Reserve was “a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States.”  This Article argues that such an exception is illogical.  No historical basis exists: The Federal Reserve is not sufficiently analogous to any Founding-era entity, including the First or Second Banks of the United States or the Sinking Fund Commission.  None of them conducted discretionary monetary policy.  No functional basis exists either: The Federal Reserve exercises executive power.  And no other constitutional provision clearly justifies its independence.  It is ultimately not meaningfully different than any other administrative agency.  The Court should tread carefully before growing the removal power further. Reducing agency independence exposes the Federal Reserve to material risk.”

Workshop on Yvette Butler’s “Epistemic Appropriation, Critical Defanging, and Lessons for a Responsive New Reconstruction”

Yvette Butler, Epistemic Appropriation, Critical Defanging, and Lessons for a Responsive New Reconstruction.

Solum’s Download of the Week for June 7, 2025. Available on SSRN.

This is a synthetic academic workshop generated using enTalkenator (a variation of the Workshop template, using the Google Gemini 2.5 Pro). Somewhat hilariously, the text to speech, using OpenAI’s tts models. often pronounces “defanging” as “de-FANGE-ing.” I used one Google Gemini voice this time, and it gets it right (even though it otherwise doesn’t sound as good to my ears). But I’m sharing with you all the workshop it made, warts and all.

Abstract: “This essay examines how epistemic appropriation undermines collective liberation and perpetuates a Cycle of Epistemic Oppression in law. Drawing on metaphors from Dragon Age Inquisition, a fantasy role-playing video game, I illustrate how values like Wisdom, Purpose, and Justice can be corrupted when detached and misdirected from their essential natures. Similarly, the concept of epistemic appropriation is apparent when marginalized knowers’ contributions are detached from their original context and misdirected to serve dominant interests. This concept is introduced through two case studies: Black women hair braiders whose narratives are used by advocacy groups to advance deregulatory agendas, and the Supreme Court's appropriation of Critical Race Theory critiques of racial categories in college admissions cases. Ultimately, the transformative potential of marginalized knowers’ contributions is neutralized through ‘critical defanging.’ The essay concludes by proposing that achieving collective liberation requires genuine curiosity, epistemic responsibility, and the recognition of knowledge contributions from marginalized communities without extracting them from their critical and resistant elements. This approach would help bridge divides between academics, institutions, communities, and individuals in co-creating liberatory futures.”

Intro class on using airborne eDNA for “rapid assessment of whole biomes, population genetics and genomic variation”

Orestis Nousias, Mark McCauley, Maximilian R. Stammnitz, Jessica A. Farrell, Samantha A. Koda, Victoria Summers, Catherine B. Eastman, Fiona G. Duffy, Isabelle J. Duffy, Jenny Whilde & David J. Duffy, Shotgun sequencing of airborne eDNA achieves rapid assessment of whole biomes, population genetics and genomic variation, available at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-025-02711-w.

This is a synthetic introductory class (no expertise assumed!) generated using enTalkenator (selecting Gemini 2.5 Pro).

Abstract: “Biodiversity and its associated genetic diversity are being lost at an unprecedented rate. Simultaneously, the distributions of flora, fauna, fungi, microbes and pathogens are rapidly changing. Novel technology can help to capture and record genetic diversity before it is lost and to measure population shifts and pathogen distributions. Here we report the rapid application of shotgun long-read environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis for non-invasive biodiversity, genetic diversity and pathogen assessments from air. We also compared air eDNA with water and soil eDNA. Coupling long-read sequencing with established cloud-based biodiversity pipelines enabled a 2-day turnaround from airborne sample collection to completed analysis by a single investigator. To determine the full utility of airborne eDNA, we also conducted a local bioinformatic analysis and deep short-read shotgun sequencing. From outdoor air eDNA alone, comprehensive genetic analysis was performed, including population genetics (phylogenetic placement) of a charismatic mammal (bobcat, Lynx rufus) and a venomous spider (golden silk orb weaver, Trichonephila clavipes), and haplotyping humans (Homo sapiens) from natural complex community settings, such as subtropical forests and temperate locations. The rich datasets also enabled deeper analysis of specific species and genomic regions of interest, including viral variant calling, human variant analysis and antimicrobial resistance gene surveillance from airborne DNA. Our results highlight the speed, versatility and specificity of pan-biodiversity monitoring via non-invasive eDNA sampling using current benchtop/portable and cloud-based approaches. Furthermore, they reveal the future feasibility of scaling down (equipment and temporally) these approaches for near real-time analysis. Together these approaches can enable rapid simultaneous detection of all life and its genetic diversity from air, water and sediment samples for unbiased non-targeted information-rich genomics-empowered (1) biodiversity monitoring, (2) population genetics, (3) pathogen and disease-vector genomic surveillance, (4) allergen and narcotic surveillance, (5) antimicrobial resistance surveillance and (6) bioprospecting.”