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A video play idonOn November 24, 2020, Dave Chappelle posted his “Unforgiven” stand-up set to Instagram and publicly called out Viacom and Comedy Central over the streaming rights and revenues from his early-2000s hit, Chappelle’s Show. As we previously explained, rather than litigating what seemed to be Viacom-friendly contract language, Chappelle was taking the issue to “his real boss”—his fans—by calling for a boycott of the show on two major streaming platforms: Netflix and HBO Max. By the end of 2020, both platforms had taken the show down. Chappelle hoped to use the boycott as leverage to renegotiate a better deal.

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marijuana plantsWith the inauguration of President Joseph Biden in January and the attaining of a narrow majority by Democratic party in Congress, there’s been some excitement in the cannabis space, as well as many questions revolving around one central unknown: How will the Biden administration and the swing in Congress leadership impact cannabis reform?

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While we’ve devoted ample time to discussing areas of potential concern regarding the application of algorithms—and algorithm bias in particular—it’s also a good time to remember algorithmic technology is poised to make our lives better, often in ways we’ll never know about.

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Streaming-boycott-1202533838-300x171Just before Thanksgiving, Dave Chappelle posted to his Instagram account an 18-minute stand-up set titled “Unforgiven.” As expected, Chappelle’s fans ate it up, and the original video has been viewed more than six million times in the two weeks since its posting. Chappelle opens the set sharing stories and lessons learned from his start in comedy at the age of 14 before turning to a very public airing of grievances with Viacom over the streaming rights to the early-2000s Comedy Central hit Chappelle’s Show, which Viacom owns and had recently started streaming on both HBO Max and Netflix.

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Machine-learning-1079012838-300x209One of the biggest obstacles self-driving cars have to get around is the one between our ears. Even as these vehicles are hitting the streets in pilot projects, three out of four Americans aren’t comfortable with the idea of their widespread use.

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Facial-recognition-bias-1190624951-300x213The sweeping use of facial recognition software across public and private sectors has raised alarm bells in communities of color, for good reason. The data that feed the software, the photographic technology in the software, the application of the software—all these factors work together against darker-skinned people.

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GettyImages-1269726290-scaled-e1606147822524-300x219As research continues to prove that AI is not an impartial arbiter of who’s who (or who’s what), various mechanisms are being devised to mitigate the collateral damage from facial recognition software.

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We’ve written frequently about the distributed ledger technology (DLT) and the blockchain—on the interesting variations of the technology, its ability to bolster other technologies and its potential applications on everything from team giveaways to trading platforms (be they for cryptocurrency or energy commodities). In “Blockchain-Based Tokenization of Commercial Real Estate,” colleague Matt Olhausen examines the real-world application of tokenization—the process of representing a fractional ownership interest in an asset with a blockchain-based digital token—in commercial real estate.

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AI-Bias-300x174Say what you want about the digital ad you received today for the shoes you bought yesterday, but research shows that algorithms are a powerful tool in online retail and marketing. By some estimates, 80 percent of Netflix viewing hours and 33 percent of Amazon purchases are prompted by automated recommendations based on the consumer’s viewing or buying history.

But algorithms may be even more powerful where they’re less visible—which is to say, everywhere else. Between 2015 and 2019, the use of artificial intelligence technology by businesses grew by more than 270 percent, and that growth certainly isn’t limited to the private sector.

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GettyImages-1254705023-videoconferencing-300x200“One who invites another to his home or office takes a risk that the visitor may not be what he seems, and that the visitor may repeat all he hears and observes when he leaves. But he does not and should not be required to take the risk that what is heard and seen will be transmitted by photograph or recording, or in our modern world, in full living color and hi-fi to the public at large or to any segment of it that the visitor may select.” When Ninth Circuit Judge Shirley M. Hufstedler wrote these words in 1971 about surreptitious recordings made by newsmen, she probably had no idea that a global pandemic would give new meaning to her words.

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