 |
|
|
|||||
A few years ago, when I was working at a traditional law firm, the partners gathered with us with barely any excitement. “Rejoice,” they announced, unveiling our new AI assistant that would make legal work faster, easier, and better. An expert was brought in to train us on dashboards and automation. Within months, her enthusiasm had curdled into frustration as lawyers either ignored the expensive tool or, worse, followed its recommendations blindly. That’s when I realized: we weren’t learning to use AI. AI was learning to use us. Many traditional law firms have rushed to adopt AI decision support tools for client selection, case assessment, and strategy development. The pitch is irresistible: AI reduces costs, saves time, and promises better decisions through pure logic, untainted by human bias or emotion. These systems appear precise: When AI was used in cases, evidence gets rated “strong,” “medium,” or “weak.” Case outcomes receive probability scores. Legal strategies are color-coded by risk level. But this crisp certainty masks a messy reality: most of these AI assessments rely on simple scoring rules that check whether information matches predefined characteristics. It’s sophisticated pattern-matching, not wisdom, and it falls apart spectacularly with borderline cases that don’t fit the template. And here’s the kicker: AI systems often replicate the very biases they’re supposed to eliminate. Research is finding that algorithmic recommendations in legal tech can reflect and even amplify human prejudices baked into training data. Your “objective” AI tool might carry the same blind spots as a biased partner, it’s just faster and more confident about it. And yet: None of this means abandoning AI tools. It means building and demanding better ones. The Default Trap “So what?” you might think. “AI tools are just that, tools. Can’t we use their speed and efficiency while critically reviewing their suggestions?” In theory, yes. In practice, we’re terrible at it. Behavioral economists have documented a phenomenon called status quo bias: our powerful preference for defaults. When an AI system presents a recommendation, that recommendation becomes the path of least resistance. Questioning it requires time, cognitive effort, and the social awkwardness of overriding what feels like expert consensus. I watched this happen repeatedly at the firm. An associate would run case details through the AI, which would spit out a legal strategy. Rather than treating it as one input among many, it became the starting point that shaped every subsequent discussion. The AI’s guess became our default, and defaults are sticky. This wouldn’t matter if we at least recognized what was happening. But something more insidious occurs: our ability to think independently atrophies. Writer Nicholas Carr has long warned about the cognitive costs of outsourcing thinking to machines, and mounting evidence supports his concerns. Each time we defer to AI without questioning it, we get a little worse at making those judgments ourselves. I’ve watched junior associates lose the ability to evaluate cases on their own. They’ve become skilled at operating the AI interface but struggle when asked to analyze a legal problem from scratch. The tool was supposed to make them more efficient; instead, it’s made them dependent. Speed Without Wisdom The real danger isn’t that AI makes mistakes. It’s that AI makes mistakes quickly, confidently, and at scale. An attorney accepts a case evaluation without noticing the system misunderstood a crucial precedent. A partner relies on AI-generated strategy recommendations that miss a creative legal argument a human would have spotted. A firm uses AI for client intake and systematically screens out cases that don’t match historical patterns, even when those cases have merit. Each decision feels rational in the moment, backed by technology and data. But poor inputs and flawed models produce poor outputs, just faster than before. The Better Path Forward The problems I witnessed stemmed from how these legacy systems were designed: as replacement tools rather than enhancement tools. They positioned AI as the decision-maker with humans merely reviewing outputs, rather than keeping human judgment at the center. Better AI legal tools exist, and they take a fundamentally different approach. They’re built with judgment-first design, treating lawyers as the primary decision-makers and AI as a support system that enhances rather than replaces expertise. These systems make their reasoning transparent, showing how they arrived at recommendations rather than presenting black-box outputs. They include regular capability assessments to ensure lawyers maintain independent analytical skills even while using AI assistance. And they’re designed to flag edge cases and uncertainties rather than presenting false confidence. The difference is philosophical: are you building tools that make lawyers faster at being lawyers, or tools that try to replace lawyering itself? I see this different approach playing out in immigration services, where the stakes of poor decisions are particularly high. Consider a case where an applicant’s employment history doesn’t neatly match historical approval patterns, perhaps they’ve had gaps, career shifts, or worked in emerging fields. A traditional AI tool would flag this as “non-standard,” lowering approval probability and becoming the default recommendation. A judgment-first system does something entirely different: it surfaces the exact factors that make the case atypical, explains why precedent might or might not apply, and explicitly asks the immigration officer, “What do you see here that the algorithm misses?” The officer remains the decision-maker, armed with both AI efficiency and the cognitive space to apply nuanced expertise. The tool didn’t replace judgment; it enhanced it. That’s the difference between AI that makes professionals dependent and AI that makes them sharper. Taking Back Control None of this means abandoning AI tools. It means using them deliberately: Treat AI recommendations as drafts, not answers. Before accepting any AI suggestion, ask: “What would I recommend if the system weren’t here?” If you can’t answer, you’re not ready to evaluate the AI’s output. Build in friction. Create a rule that important decisions require at least one alternative to the AI’s recommendation. Force yourself to articulate why the AI is right, rather than assuming it is. Test regularly. Periodically work through problems without AI assistance to maintain your independent judgment. Think of it like a pilot practicing manual landings despite having autopilot. Demand transparency. Push vendors to explain how their systems reach conclusions. If they can’t or won’t, that’s a red flag. You’re entitled to understand what’s shaping your decisions. Stay skeptical of certainty. When AI outputs seem suspiciously confident or precise, dig deeper. Real-world problems are messy; if the answer looks too clean, something’s probably being oversimplified. The legal professionals who thrive with AI aren’t those who defer to it blindly or reject it entirely. They’re the ones who leverage its efficiencies while maintaining sharp human judgment, and who insist on tools designed to enhance their capabilities rather than circumvent them. Left unchecked, poorly designed AI assistants will train you to make terrible decisions. But that outcome isn’t inevitable. The future belongs to legal professionals who demand tools that genuinely enhance their expertise rather than erode it. After all, speed and convenience lose much of their appeal if they compromise the quality of justice itself.
Category:
E-Commerce
Growing up, WNBA star Paige Bueckers says she was huge on sports memorabilia. She collected items across a range of sports from her favorite players, including their posters, autographs, and jerseys. Today, shes having a full circle moment: Bueckers just announced an exclusive, multi-year deal with Fanatics, which will make the sports apparel juggernaut the sole provider of her memorabilia and collectibles. The Paige Bueckers Fanatics collection pulls from both her collegiate career with the UConn Huskies (which she led to four Big East Tournament wins, four Final Four appearances, and a National Championship title) and her current professional career as a guard on the Dallas Wings, and includes autographed and inscribed basketballs, jerseys, photos, shoes, and select game-used equipment. The collection is currently live across Fanatics network of sites, including Fanatics.com and WNBAStore.com. Bueckers, who graduated from the University of Connecticut in 2024, was one of the first college athletes to benefit from the Supreme Courts 2021 ruling allowing amateurs to profit off of their own name, image, and likeness (NIL) rights. She became a trailblazer in using strategic NIL deals to expertly market her own brand, racking up an estimated $1.5 million net worth by her final 20242025 NCAA season. Now, with this Fanatics partnership, shes bringing that honed business savvy into her pro careerand using her own visibility to uplift her fellow athletes. Paige Bueckers [Photo: Fanatics] Inside the new Paige Bueckers Fanatics collection Prior to this deal, Bueckerss likeness was already a sales hit for Fanatics. After being selected first overall in the 2025 WNBA draft by the Wings, Bueckers became this years Rookie of the Year and an All-Star player. According to a Fanatics press release, Her jersey and other merchandise was an immediate hit and flew off the shelves all season long, with sales on draft night becoming the second best by a WNBA player in league history. For Fanatics, this partnership is part of a larger plan to become the Amazon of sports, as Fast Company put it in a 2023 feature. The brand is currently the single biggest manufacturer and distributor of sports fan apparel in the U.S., sitting at a valuation of an estimated $31 billion as of 2022. Still, its set its sights on growing even further by expanding intoand eventually dominatingthe collectibles market. Bueckers says Fanaticss incredible reach will also help her connect with as many young fans as possible, echoing her own early memories of collecting memorabilia of her favorite athletes. Beyond that, the Fanatics deal is a recent example of how Bueckers leverages brand partnerships to give back to young athletes. [Image: Fanatics] Dominating on the court and in the brand world Bueckers is no stranger to brand deals. In fact, shes something of a leader in a new era of financial empowerment for emerging athletes. In 2021, Bueckers became the first college athlete to sign with Gatorade mere months after the implementation of NIL. During the remainder of her college career, she penned deals with major names including Bose, Intuit, Verizon, Madison Reed, Google Chrome, and Epic Games. Just before her pro debut, she joined DoorDash as its first-ever athlete creative director. And, this June, she partnered with Nike and Levis on a sporty, denim-centric apparel collection. In short, Bueckers has expertly curated a portfolio of some of the most recognizable brand partners in the sports world, despite entering college with what shes described as very limited experience managing her own finances. Still, she says, the most important lesson that she learned after being cast into the deep end of sports sponsorships during college was to only work with brands that align with her values. Having a team that understands that and negotiates that in every single one of my deals was really important, Bueckers says. Continuing to give back was the most important thing of all, because you can easily make NIL about yourself only.
Category:
E-Commerce
It shouldnt be much of a surprise that an AI-powered tool called Oz is heading out of, or near, the Emerald City. On November 12, Microsoft and Land OLakes announced that the two companies have co-developed an AI-powered agricultural science tool called Oz, designed to help farmers and agricultural operations. Specifically, farmers are facing some very serious problems: labor shortages and lower yields associated with changing climates. Further, costs for fuel, fertilizer, equipment, and tools, not to mention international trade issues, have put agricultural operations in an even tighter vise. Oz was built to help agronomists and farmers do more with what they have, tapping into Land OLakess vast reams of agricultural data and insights, previously available only in a bound, 800-page book. Oz itself is an AI application that is accessed and used on a mobile device, tapping into Land OLakess intellectual property to offer guidance and information on the fly. Were putting 20 years of data into [farmers] hands, says Leah Anderson, who serves as SVP of Land OLakes and president of its crop inputs and insights business, WinField United. Oz is designed to be put into the hands of an agronomist, or an agricultural scientist, she says, who can then offer the farmer on the ground insight and guidance about what to plant, where to plant it, and whenalong with myriad other things, such as weather insights, pest and pesticide information, and more. What were doing with AI . . . is using the structured, high-quality, standardized data from over the past 20 years and feeding it into Oz. That cuts out the noise, Anderson says, noting that it also helps farmers trust that the data source was correct. In other words, using Oz as an AI assistant or tool to ask questions about a given farming operation should be more trustworthy and less prone to hallucination than a broader AI tool, such as ChatGPT, which is trained on the entire internet. Oz, instead, generates insights from only one source, which is known and trusted by farmers. Oz is currently in beta testing and is in the hands of numerous retailers across the country, with plans for further expansion this year. Its also been in the works for a whilethe product of a now five-year-long partnership between Land OLakes and Microsoft. Lorraine Bardeen, corporate vice president of AI transformation at Microsoft, says she has worked at the tech giant for more than two decades in numerous departments, from finance to the Xbox team. But she decided to work on the project with Land OLakes because it was a chance to get AI tech into the fieldliterally. The first major waves of our partnership were about digitally transforming American agriculture, bringing a lot of workloads and capabilities to the cloud, she says. Over the last five years, Land OLakes has really established itself as an innovator in American agriculture. Farming on the brink The timing is critical, too, because the agriculture industry is in crisis. A June 2025 study published in Nature finds that even if farmers adapt to a changing climate, staple crops will be 24% lower by the end of the century than they are today. This year, farmers are facing an estimated $44 billion in crop losses due to rising costs, low crop prices, and international trade issues. Farmers are also struggling to find workers, a problem exacerbated by the Trump administrations immigration raids. Unchecked, these issues could compound, leading to less food production, higher prices, and even shortages. While a tech tool cant help on the trade war front, it may be useful when deciding how much or little to water certain crops, when weather patterns are expected, what types of fertilizer may be the most effective given specific soil compositions, and more. In all, it could help replace lost manpower and make better decisions with materials on hand in order to reduce waste and costs. Again, all the suggestions and insights that Oz generates draw on data that Land OLakes has compiled over many years. Land OLakes has created this really rich set of intellectual property, Bardeen says. But its historically been brought to bear in an 800-page tome. It brings incredible value, information, and insights to farmers. Oz shifts everything from a literal, static book to a dynamic, AI-powered coach. Anderson adds that farmers have more to look forward to from the Land OLakes-Microsoft partnership. American farmers are under incredible pressurewe see the stress on their faces, she says. For those farmers, its about reducing uncertainty, and nobody knows more about that than we do. What were doing with Oz is really the tip of the iceberg as to what were going to be able to do with AI.
Category:
E-Commerce
Jonathan Haidt, author of ‘The Anxious Generation,’ breaks down the psychology behind Gen Zs social media addiction and what digital dependance actually does to a young person’s brain.
Category:
E-Commerce
Something is going on with Marjorie Taylor Greene that’s making Americans furrow their brows and say, “What in the MAGA universe is going on?” The thing is, the Republican representative from Georgia, known as MTG, is a suddenly making more senseeven to her detractors. In recent months, the conservative Trump devotee, from whom Americans have come to expect off-the-cuff and often crude commentary, has been undeniably good natured, coming across as astoundingly reasonable during a number of appearances on CNN, Tucker Carlson Tonight, and elsewhere. But if that weren’t enough to cast aside doubts about a major pivot with the congresswoman (who once harassed a school shooting survivor and chased a fellow member of Congress down a hallway), then a November 4 appearance on The View definitely did the trick. On the ABC daytime talk show, Greene was perhaps the most respectful version of herself that we’ve seen. She was calm, poised, and even kind, more upstanding politician than insulting-slinging firebrand. Cohost Sunny Hostin thanked MTG for showing up ready to converse, rather than fight. In response, Greene took the opportunity to do something we’ve rarely (if ever) heard her do before: say she didn’t want to fight. No, I didnt want to do that today, because I believe that people with powerful voices, like myself and like you, and especially women to women, we need to pave a new path,” Greene told the cohosts. “This country, our beautiful country, our red, white, and blue flag, is just being ripped to shreds. And I think it takes women to have maturity to sew it back together. In a comment that felt like an early 2028 presidential campaign slogan, Greene added, Im with women, so I feel very comfortable saying this. Im really tired of the pissing contest in Washington, D.C., between the men.” The View cohosts were clearly floored. In addition to her more focused and practical demeanor, MTG’s positions have seemed more centrist than ever, too. As of late, she has been critical of President Trump on domestic policy, and on the government shutdown, calling it “an embarrassment.” Greene also criticized House Speaker Mike Johnson, who she said she had words with over his “complete and utter failure” in regard to the shutdown. Not to mention, Greene has been consistently fighting, alongside Democrats, for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking client list. She even had kind things to say about Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker and a longtime foil to congressional Republicans, who recently announced her retirement from Congress. It’s all a bit mind-blowing. But perhaps one of Greene’s most compassionate and unexpected positions (especially given her previous Islamaphobic rhetoric) is her stance on Palestine. MTG has been an outspoken voice for the people of Palestine, especially children who are the victims of Israel’s ongoing siege, making her one of the only congressional Republicans to speak out against the slaughter. “It’s the most truthful and easiest thing to say that October 7 in Israel was horrific and all hostages must be returned, but so is the genocide, humanitarian crisis, and starvation happening in Gaza,” Greene wrote in a July 2025 social media post. Critical of party leadership and policies Its been hard to miss MTGs pivot, and Trump certainly hasn’t. He told reporters Monday that the congresswoman is now catering to the other side and that he’s “surprised at her.” Still, Greene herself has seemed to dismiss the idea that she’s rebranding. In a July 16 post on social media, Greene wrote, “My blind loyalty and faith is ONLY in God and Jesus Christ my savior. That is what will guide my decisions, actions, and votes.” And last week, she told the ladies of The View that she is her own personthat she’s always criticized both sides of the aisle. “Here’s something you may not know about me. I think a lot of people on the left are learning that when I ran for Congress in 2020, I ran criticizing Republicans and democrats. Equally.” It’s hard to know what exactly is going on with MTG. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York (aka AOC) has speculated on social media that Greene is on a “revenge tour” against Trump. Still, it seems like something bigger is at play, most logically, perhaps, a 2028 bid for the presidency. Fast Company reached out to Greenes team but did not hear back by the time of publication. Organic or carefully curated? Experts say that it would not be unusual for politicians to change their positions or reign themselves in when gearing up for a campaign. Kevin Mercuri, who teaches public relations at Emerson College and is the CEO of Propheta Communications, says it’s “apparent” that MTG is working with professionals to “soften her persona in preparation for a presidential run.” It’s notable, Mercuri says, that she has been distancing herself from Trump in an effort to show she’s a “more moderate Republican,” in addition to opposing other Republican stances. However, when it comes to MTG, Mercuri says the congresswoman has her work cut out for her. “The question is, can MTG’s past outrageous behavior be easily discarded? Her claims of ‘Jewish space lasers,’ QAnon beliefs, and painful reframing of 9/11 as a ‘false flag’ event will be hard for voters to forget.” (Greene has said that she regrets some of the things she was allowed to believe, including conspiracy theories.) Either way, we’ve seen political rebrands happen hundreds of times before. Candidates gearing up for big elections work to distance themselves from previous statements they’ve made or show that they’ve grown. Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom of California has seemingly been attempting a brand pivot of his own. Still, with MTG, given just how brazen she’s been in the past, the shift is anything but subtle. Even if shes suddenly making sense, rather than screaming into the void
Category:
E-Commerce
Sites : [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] next »