A subtle, yet potentially dangerous shift is underway in one of the most influential narrative sections of financial reports: the Management’s Discussion and Analysis (MD&A). Companies are increasingly crafting these disclosures not just for human shareholders or regulators, but for machines.
This shift isn’t theoretical. In a recent article, I argued that artificial intelligence
Risky Business: The Legal and Privacy Concerns of Mandatory Age Verification Technologies
When the intersection of law and technology presents seemingly intractable new challenges, policy makers often bet on technology itself to solve the problem. Whether countering copyright infringement with digital locks, limiting access to unregulated services with website blocking, or deploying artificial intelligence to facilitate content moderation, there is a recurring hope the answer to the
Canada’s DST Debacle a Case Study of Digital Strategy Trouble
My Globe and Mail op-ed opens by noting that after years of dismissing the warnings of likely retaliation, the Canadian government caved to U.S. pressure earlier this week as it cancelled the digital services tax. Faced with the U.S. suspension of trade negotiations, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne announced that the government would rescind the legislation that
When AI Follows the Rules but Misses the Point
When a team of researchers asked an artificial intelligence system to design a railway network that minimized the risk of train collisions, the AI delivered a surprising solution: Halt all trains entirely. No motion, no crashes. A perfect safety record, technically speaking, but also a total failure of purpose. The system did exactly what it
Canadian Government Caves on Digital Services Tax After Years of Dismissing the Risks of Trade Retaliation
After years of dismissing the warnings of likely retaliation, the Canadian government caved last night on the digital services tax. Faced with the prospect of the U.S. suspending trade negotiations, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne announced that the government would drop the DST altogether, payments scheduled for Monday would be cancelled, and legislation will be
How the Neurobiology of Learning Reveals the Dangers of Students Overusing AI
In my last post, I discussed a study that demonstrated that using AI to help write papers significantly affected student learning. In this post, I show why this is so using the neurobiology of learning–how the brain learns. Question: How…
A Terrifying Report on the Effect of AI on Learning
Scholars at MIT just published a brain scan study of ChatGPT users, with frightening results. Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task by Nataliya Kosmyna, Eugene Hauptmann, Ye Tong Yuan,…
When More Is Less: Information Overload in AI-Driven Finance
Large language models (LLMs) are rapidly becoming integral to financial analysis, from parsing earnings calls to predicting stock market reactions to news. But a critical question remains: When we feed these models more information, do they perform better? Our recent study suggests, not necessarily. We document a structural limitation of LLMs in financial tasks, a
AI Cannot Replace Human Memory
Here is an important article that shows AI is not a substitute for human memory of facts and processes: The Most Important Memory is Still the One Inside Your Head. “The very architecture of expertise is built not by exposure,…
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 235: Teresa Scassa on the Alberta Clearview AI Ruling That Could Have a Big Impact on Privacy and Generative AI
The privacy concerns with Clearview AI sparked investigations and court cases around the world. The issues date back many years, but recently an Alberta court weighed in on the application of provincial privacy law in a decision that has big implications not only for that company but for the intersection between privacy and generative AI.