January 28, 2025
A Warning Against Warning Labels on Social Media Platforms
If you can’t constitutionally restrict social media platforms or the speech they convey, force them to transmit some of your own speech they’ll surely dislike. That’s seemingly the strategy of some lawmakers frustrated that the First Amendment’s guarantees of free expression and editorial autonomy have repeatedlystymied their paternalistic efforts to restrict minors’ platform access to lawful, presumptively protected…
January 27, 2025
Brilliant Ideas on the Cutting Room Floor
The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is a neat repository for papers from what can be a long history of creating ideas. Most scholars maintain a page there, or their institutions do for them. Oh, how they may suffer from neglect, though! I recently started updating mine after a decade or more of . . . not….
January 27, 2025
AI’s Emerging Paradox
While the presidential transition commanded headlines this week, equally significant shifts were occurring in AI technology. Just hours before Donald Trump’s inauguration, DeepSeek released its latest model, achieving a breakthrough in AI reasoning that matches the best models of OpenAI and Anthropic but at a fraction of the cost. DeepSeek, which is backed by a Chinese…
January 27, 2025
The Most Major Hurricanes Ever
Last year the world experienced the most major hurricane landfalls since records are available, tying only 2015, with 11 storms. Does last year indicate that we have reached a new climate-fueled normal? Let’s have a look. More than a decade ago, Jessica Weinkle, Ryan Maue, and I published the first long-period global hurricane landfall dataset using a consistent methodology….
January 24, 2025
Adults, Minors, and Access to Online Pornography: SCOTUS Weighs the Interests
When it comes to free speech rights, the United States has only one First Amendment, but it also has two classes of citizens who receive different levels of protection under it—minors and adults. In this age-based rights system, minors are second-class citizens. For example, they have scant constitutional protection to access sexually explicit content. In…
January 24, 2025
Trump’s Big, Bold AI Gamble
What a difference a week makes. As others and I have predicted, newly-inaugurated President Trump rolled back much of his predecessor’s policy approach to artificial intelligence (AI). But few forecasted just how stark the contrast has been. Last week, before the inauguration, I argued that Trump should reverse outgoing President Biden’s ill-considered Executive Order on AI. As…
January 24, 2025
Two Cautions on the Trump Energy/Environment Executive Orders
The Trump “Day One” executive orders on energy and environment policies are worthy of applause because they implement a shift toward market forces in place of central planning as the dominant institution driving resource allocation in the various energy sectors. At the same time, two of the executive orders are problematic: the exit from the Paris climate agreement, and…
January 22, 2025
Liability Elasticity and Other Policy Concerns Underlying Social Media Addiction Lawsuits
Lurking beneath today’s raft of social media addiction lawsuits blaming platforms for harming minors are three broad public policy concerns. These frets could easily affect corporate liability in areas beyond online media. The first concern is the discretion trial court judges possess––in the absence of explicit legislation or a state high court ruling dictating otherwise––when deciding whether…
January 22, 2025
Liability Elasticity and Other Policy Concerns Underlying Social Media Addiction Lawsuits
Lurking beneath today’s raft of social media addiction lawsuits blaming platforms for harming minors are three broad public policy concerns. These frets could easily affect corporate liability in areas beyond online media. The first concern is the discretion trial court judges possess––in the absence of explicit legislation or a state high court ruling dictating otherwise––when deciding whether…
January 22, 2025
How Would Changes to Infrastructure Permitting Affect the US Economy?
Event Summary On January 21, AEI’s Michael R. Strain and James W. Coleman welcomed two panels of experts to discuss the policies and regulations for building physical infrastructure in the US. The first panel analyzed the trajectory for when new infrastructure building projects and permitting requirements such as environmental impact surveys will interact in terms…