Boy am I tired of that one. We desperately need more smaller companies and actual competition but nobody seems to even be trying
A friend of mine has been trying to get into law school for a few years; she's technically competent and plenty intelligent, but it's been hard going for her to get in, plus multiple years of education to even attempt the bar. All of that sounds like far too much sunk-cost to me to dally in and figure out if it's a path I would truly enjoy.
What ways could I engage with policy coming from a technical background that would serve as a useful stepping stone to a more policy based career, but doesn't require such an upfront cost as a law degree?
Which brings me to the next point. Doing a law degree and passing the bar is perhaps the obvious path to doing policy things. It’s basically the only way that you can end up actively participating in courts, for example. But there are many other options! For myself, the plan is to stay in academia and not take any bar courses (then again, who knows what will happen!). Academics have lots of potential to shift policy, especially as neutral agents who aren’t paid by either side of particular debates. Our papers are read by policymakers and judges, who often don’t have the time or resources to think deeply about particularly gnarly topics. But there are lots of other options which could also work, and I guess finding a "niche" would depend on your specific circumstances, connections and skillset.
If you’re looking to spend more time thinking about policy issues, I’d start by simply sleuthing online. Bruce Schneier, for example, regularly writes excellent pieces at the intersection of technology and policy, which are very well hyperlinked to other high quality stuff. These kinds of blogs are a great way to get into the space, as well as to learn about opportunities which are coming up. Reading journal articles that sound interesting is a good option too (and US law journal articles are often quite accessible). There are also spaces offline, such as conferences which encourage both law and tech people (there’s one happening in Brussels soon [1]), or even institutions set up specifically to operate in this space and which have in-person events (Newspeak House comes to mind [2]).
[1] https://www.article19.org/digital-markets-act-enforcement/ [2] https://newspeak.house
Law school is the same as med school: if you can’t see yourself living life as something that requires a JD, skip it. Just do the thing you want to do; unless that’s “dispense legal advoce to paying clients and represent them in legal disputes” you can probably do it legally without a JD.
Also be aware you are a lawyer when you graduate law school and you don’t have to pass the bar unless that’s a requirement for your practice. For example, a general counsel of an internet startup might not have to be a member of the bar, but someone going into trial court to represent clients does. I would think you could be a staffer for a congressperson with a JD and without bar membership prettt easily.
Yes, mosedef, I'm all in.
Please post/share any news or tips you find. TIA.
The point of VC, specifically, is to grow software monopolies - but it's very easy to pick up VC funding if you happen to live in the Bay Area.
While his Nobel prize was for "physics", his domain is AI.
Paraphrasing: Capital will use / is using AI to further bludgeon Labor.
We are at the awesome moment in history when the AI bubble is popping so I am looking forward to a lot of journalists eating their words (not that anybody is keeping track but they are wrong most of the time) and a lot of LLM companies going under and the domino crash of the stocks of Meta, OpenAI to AWS, Google and Microsoft to Softbank (the same guys giving money to Adam Neumann from WeWork).
The current absolute balloon of a market is about to pop, and sadly, the people who hyped the stocks are also the ones knowing when to jump ship, while the hapless schmucks who believed the hype will most likely lose their money, along with a lot of folks whose retirement investment funds either didn't due their diligence or were outright greedy.
In a way, as a society we deserve this upcoming crash, because we allow charlatans and con people like Musk, Zuck and Sam to sell us snake oil.
Certainly not people regularly buying stocks or stock ETFs/Funds.
Social media was a quality of life upgrade where it wasn't promising too much, and it delivered on what it promised. (maybe a little too much)
AI on the other hand just like blockchain feels like hype.
Now if you're not on linkedIn, people question whether you are a real person or not.
I hope AI ends up like blockchain. It's there if you have a use-case for it, but it's not absolutely embedded in everything you do. Both are insanely cool technologies.
And like...LLAMa?
Maybe also like adding ads in WhatsApp cause we gotta squeeze our users so we can spend on... AI gurus?
Meta has not had a win since they named themselves Meta. It's enjoyable to watch them flail around like clueless morons jumping on every fad and wasting their time and money.
Maybe this sounds selfish but its a little fun to me to see them lose. I just don't like meta and its privacy in sensitive ad network bullshit.
Like the fact that if someone clicked a photo and deleted it then show them beauty ads because they are insecure. I can't give 2 cents about the growth of such a black mirror -esque company
I would donate my two cents or even more to witness their downfall though. I left WhatsApp years ago, and haven't used any of their other services like fb or Instagram. I don't want to contribute to a company that actively helped a couple of genocides (Myanmar), help elect a dictator or two (Philippines) and spread racist propaganda and, most recently, allowing women to be called 'personal objects'.
Their tech is far from impressive, their products are far from impressive, the only impressive thing is that they are still in business.
I do however think that this is a business choice that at the very least was likely extensively discussed.