#AcademicRunPlaylist - 3/12/24

Author

Ben Waber
March 12, 2024

A gravel path lined by bare trees on either side on a sunny day

It's really starting to feel like spring in Boston, which meant great weather to go along with my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was a fantastic panel on labor market policies to reduce inequality at the Peterson Institute for International Economics with William Darity, David Ellwood, and Heidi Shierholz. These are some bold policy recommendations, but they're backed up with strong research and are still worthy of close consideration. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbVuopuFJkw

Next was an amazing talk by Lisa Larrimore Ouellette on the state of patent disclosure and the likely effect of generative AI at the Mannheim Centre for Competition and Innovation (MaCCI). This talk first takes us on a tour of the state of patenting in the US, complete with a survey of how academics and practitioners use them (although I strongly suspect people highly over-reported how much they look at patents), then highlighting some big flaws with the current system. The conclusion is unsurprising but extremely important - generative AI is likely to exacerbate these problems to the breaking point. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnWMRqZhsEs

Next was an interesting talk by Saurabh Gupta on robot learning from egocentric videos at the GRASP Lab https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCCR9gjfibo

Next was a fascinating panel on work relations after the IWGB vs. Deliveroo ruling in the UK with Lizzie Barmes, Anne Davies, John Hendy, and Anthony Kerr. The discussion here looks at different decisions around work and employer control in the UK and Ireland, with some profound suggestions for policy makers, the legal system, and companies. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCLLpcMCKqE

Last was the first day of the Hitotsubashi University Legal Systems and AI event. I particularly liked the talk by Simon Deakin and the panel discussion with Yuichi Washida, Takashi Araki, Chikako Kanki, Deakin, Bhumika Billa, and Daiji Kawaguchi. For those of you who speak Japanese there's also a Japanese version, but unfortunately you can't toggle the language on the video