Research as a team sport
A brief note on community vibes
Hello, dear reader, and welcome to another issue of AI, Law, and Otter Things! I have been meaning to write to you a bit earlier, but the last two weeks flew past me. Last week, I was in London for the BILETA annual conference, where I presented a more fleshed-out version of the research on regulatory monocultures discussed in a previous issue. As I write these words, I’m in Dubrovnik, participating in a fascinating workshop on Modern Technologies and EU law, where I will present what will likely be my last paper on AI transparency. All the while, I’ve been doing some soul searching about my next career steps. So, this issue will be shorter than usual.
In the following paragraphs, you will find a personal rant about finding your academic community, followed by some reading recommendations and academic opportunities, and finally the otter. Hope you enjoy it!
Finding a research home
How do you choose a research topic? The answer to that question hinges on a lot, including the availability of resources, historical contingencies that make some themes more salient than others, and personal inclinations. While contextual factors can constrain the space of possible choices, many academically-oriented people still have a considerable range of discretion when choosing what to work on.1 As a result, those of us who are not blessed2 with a laser-focused interest on a particular issue usually have to make some choices about how to allocate their time and other limited resources. Personally, I find that my choices in this regard are increasingly shaped by community vibes.
At the most basic level, this means cultivating a no asshole rule. Even though I am kind of a jerk myself, my time working as a data scientist has given me some first-hand experience with the costs of putting up with noxious people because they are supposedly brilliant. Even if they turn out to have valuable skills and knowledge, their negative impact on the rest of the team usually leads to worse overall results.
This is especially true in academia, where you have lots of people that are incredibly clever—at least in their particular domain of interest3—and as such it is rarely the case that somebody is so much more brilliant than the average to justify putting up with them.4 Therefore, to the extent possible, I have tried to cooperate with nice people, and avoided diving into domains that operate according to different social norms.5
Avoiding assholes is a self-preserving measure, which makes survival in academia easier whenever it can be done. But, as a so-so Star Trek episode and a much better pandemic novel remind us, survival is insufficient. To the extent I have a choice on that, I would like to be a part of communities that are interested in questions that care about questions that resonate with me for one reason or the other. In fact, I decided to leave computer science when I was at a nice conference and realized I felt incredibly bored by the programme, even though the nice people there were clearly passionate about their work.
This is why some of my collaborations, such as my dives into the regulation of healthcare AI or platform governance, turned out to be dead ends. Even though I have been fortunate to find amazing collaborators in those fields, at some point I realized that I was not particularly invested in the questions that mattered to that community.6 Furthermore, interests change over time: as I mentioned some times in this newsletters, I feel like I don’t have anything interesting to say about regulation by design at the time, having exhausted any insights I might have had at some point.
Alas, that does foreclose some possibilities of cooperating with people I admire deeply—not to mention opportunities in a tight job market—but I have the impression that what I can offer is not particularly relevant to those communities, and vice-versa. And, at the end of the day, it is the possibility of dialogue that draws me to academic work. Academia—at least most of the time—gains much less from individual genius than it does from dialogue among people interested in related questions. As an individual, I am already boring enough as a conversationalist, so I’d rather sit out of conversations where I don’t have much to add or people are interested in other things.7 But, as time goes by, I find that being in the right room is one of the most important things about keeping interest in research. Therefore, if I can offer one piece of advice to my even earlier career colleagues, it would be to wear sunscreen keep reflecting about what drives your interests and try to adjust your path towards that to the extent possible.
Recommendations
To begin with self-advertisement, my free textbook on Law & Compliance in AI Security & Data Protection is now available. This textbook is a training module commissioned by the Hellenic Data Protection Authority, in the framework of the EDPB support pool of experts, and it is meant to equip privacy and data professional scholars with technical and legal information they need to assess and respond to data protection and cybersecurity risks throughout the AI life cycle. The book can be downloaded here in English, but a better-formatted version is forthcoming, as well as a translation to Greek.
Because other people write stuff, too, here are some things that might be of interest:
Miikka Hiltunen, ‘Exploring the Legal Making of the European Digital Economy’ (2024) 3 European Law Open 633.
Lyria Bennett Moses, ‘Why Have a Theory of Law and Technological Change?’ (2007) 8 The Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology 589.
Mattis van ‘t Schip, ‘The Cyber Resilience Act and Open-Source Software: A Fine Balancing Act’ (2025) 16 JIPITEC – Journal of Intellectual Property, Information Technology and E-Commerce Law.
Susan Leigh Star, ‘The Ethnography of Infrastructure’ (1999) 43 American Behavioral Scientist 377.
Craig Thompson, ‘The Code That Controls Your Money’ [2020] Wealthsimple Magazine.
Lee Vinsel, ‘How to Be a Better Reactionary: Time and Knowledge in Technology Regulation’ (Medium, 17 October 2023).
Bishoy L Zaki, ‘Policy Learning Governance: A New Perspective on Agency across Policy Learning Theories’ (2024) 1 Policy & Politics 1.
Opportunities
The chair in Cyber Policy at the University of Luxembourg (a.k.a. my boss) is hiring a Research and Development Specialist, who will carry out desk research and research support activities in the law of cyber security, cyber defence, and cyber resilience. This is an ideal position for somebody with a Master’s degree in law who is interested in gaining research experience, potentially for applying with a PhD. As nothing is perfect, you’d end up working with me, but the employment conditions and the rest of the team are very nice, so don’t hesitate to apply! Applications will be considered on a rolling basis, and, while I am not directly involved in selection, feel free to reach out if you have questions about the position.
Elsewhere, the NOVA Law School in Lisbon is hiring two assistant professors: one in public law, subject area Human Rights in the Digital Age/Cybersecurity; and the other in Transdisciplinary and Socio-Legal Studies (Philosophy of Law), in the thematic area of Human Rights, Access to Justice and the Rule of Law. Applications for both positions are open until 8 May.
The Council of Europe is looking for a data protection commissioner, with applications open until 30 April.
If you are a doctoral researcher working or standardization, or if you are preparing a PhD proposal on that topic, the Workshop for PhD Students at the EURAS standardization conference might be of interest to you. Submissions are welcome until 20 May.
Finally, the otters
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See, e.g., how “technology law” covers almost everything under the sun nowadays.
Or cursed, depending on one’s point of view.
As exemplified by my utter inability to retain the names of vegetables in any language (including Portuguese!).
Here I am focusing on the utilitarian rationale for putting up with purportedly brilliant assholes, but other concerns (such as matters of dignity) can make the case for assholes even weaker.
Not that I have anything against, say, law and economics, some of my best friends work on that.
It’s not that I don’t see those fields as important, and in fact I have some strong opinions on some topics that go beyond my expertise. Still, I find that, even on those topics, my engagement is that of an interested citizen than that of a scholar.
Of course, it is not always the case that one is not being part of the conversation simply because of a difference of interests. People might find themselves excluded for a variety of non-epistemic reasons, not least discrimination against women and minorities. This topic warrants better discussion than I can offer, especially in the context of this particular rant.