Hello, dear reader, and welcome to another issue of AI, Law, and Otter Things! Once again, I am writing you from the liminal space between not-quite-a-PhD-yet and not-yet-employed, which means I don’t have much to share in terms of works in progress. I’m doing quite a bit these days,1 but everything is one of: (a) well advanced work that I already shared in previous issues; (b) early stage writing that is still too immature to see the light of day;2 or (c) not publishable.3 So, today’s issue mostly include some reading recommendations on AI, law, and other subjects that interest me, as well as some links for job opportunities. And, of course, a lovely otter by the end of it.

This was not my original plan, of course. I was planning to write something about my PhD experience, as my supervisor kindly invited me to talk about that with my colleagues. It should have been easy to convert my notes from that talk into a newsletter, but I’m not sure that my PhD trajectory is particularly representative, and my current frustrations in the job market means my reflections might not be sound advice for colleagues interested in academia. Maybe I will come back to those notes at some point, but for now you’ve been spared from this particular rant.

Before I share my recommendations, however, Winnie wants to say “hi”:

Academic recommendations

First, allow me to share some scholarly writings that seem relevant for people subscribing to this newsletter:

• Lilian Edwards and others, ‘Private Ordering and Generative AI: What Can We Learn From Model Terms and Conditions?’ (CREATe Working Paper 2024/5).
• Isabelle Fest and others, ‘Understanding Data Professionals in the Police: A Qualitative Study of System-Level Bureaucrats’ (2023) 25 Public Management Review 1664.
• Inge Graef and Bart van der Sloot (eds), The Legal Consistency of Technology Regulation in Europe (Hart Publishing 2024).
• Benedict Kingsbury and Nahuel Maisley, ‘Infrastructures and Laws: Publics and Publicness’ (2021) 17 Annual Review of Law and Social Science 353.
• Ida Koivisto and others, ‘User Accounts: How Technological Concepts Permeate Public Law through the EU’s AI Act’ [2024] Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law 1023263X241248469. (this is probably the first time this newsletter is quoted in a peer-reviewed article!)
• Wenlong Li and Jiahong Chen, ‘From Brussels Effect to Gravity Assists: Understanding the Evolution of the GDPR-Inspired Personal Information Protection Law in China’ (2024) 54 Computer Law & Security Review 105994.
• Noortje Marres and others, ‘AI as Super-Controversy: Eliciting AI and Society Controversies with an Extended Expert Community in the UK’ (2024) 11 Big Data & Society 20539517241255103.
• Albert Sanchez-Graells, ‘Responsibly Buying Artificial Intelligence: A “Regulatory Hallucination”’ [2024] Current Legal Problems cuae003.

Now, some materials that I found useful for organizing my work as a scholar:

• Raul Pacheco-Vega’s blog has a series of handy resources on various aspects of academic life: reading, writing, time management, teaching, and others. His guides to planning doctoral work, backcasting research projects, and keeping tracking of the PhD with a dissertation two-pager were particularly useful. You might also enjoy his bibliography on qualitative interviews.
• Eviatar Zerubavel’s The Clockwork Muse is an old book, but I found it pretty useful when it comes to time management and carving out some time for research from all your other duties
• William Germano’s On Revision has many useful strategies to move from first draft to something you’re not too embarrassed to share with others and the world more generally.
• A latecomer to my reading lists, Thomas S. Mullaney and Christopher Rea’s ‘Where Research Begins: Choosing a Research Project That Matters to You (and the World)’ has been useful when I started to think about the research I want to do after the PhD.

Opportunities

The University of Southampton is looking for an associate/full professor in law with expertise in Sustainability and Law, AI and Law and/or Biotechnology and Law. Apply by 26 June.

The Alan Turing Institute is hiring a Policy Fellow, AI Governance. Applications are open until 30 June.

Goethe University Frankfurt is hiring for three open rank Professorships for the Critical Reflection and/or Governance of Computational Technologies. Their hiring process will begin with a workshop in October, and you should apply for that workshop by 4 July.

The Centre for the Governance of AI is hiring Research Scholars (1-year visiting position) and Research Fellows (more permanent position, with the potential for multiple 2-year contracts). Applications are open until 7 July.

Aston Law School has three openings for lecturer in law, with technology law and policy being one of their interest areas. Apply by 15 July.

Bristol Law School UWE is looking for lecturers/senior lecturers in law with cyber/IT law being one of their interest areas. Applications are open until 21 July.

And now, the otter

Hope to see you in the next issue!