Hello, dear reader! Today’s issue does not feature the usual essay about whatever I am working on at the moment, as I am focusing on a piece that is still at a somewhat early stage. Instead, I will use my Spotify Wrapped as a starting point for a personal reflection about musical habits. Then, we follow the usual order for this newsletter: I share a few recommendations of things to read (and, in one case, to watch), followed by some opportunities. In the end, as usual, we have an adorable otter. I hope at least one of these things interests you!
Before moving on to that, however, I would be a bit remiss if I didn’t mention some of the big developments in AI in the last few days. On the corporate front, we saw some additional developments after the attempted coup at OpenAI and the ensuing power struggle. In politics, we are still facing an impasse on the EU AI Act negotiations surrounding the regulation of foundation models: will any of the parties budge before the end of the year? Or will we face the risk of seeing the AI Act left to after the Parliamentary elections? Finally, in the karma Houdini department, we have the death of the AI pundit (see also: dictatorship supporter, war criminal) Henry Kissinger.
On a personal level, there were quite a few developments, too. I participated in webinars about the EUI PhD programme and the potential global impact of the AI Act. Plus, I was added to the CIDOB-Santander 35 Under 35 list of people working on “Bridging the digital global governance gap”. All in all, a good week, despite lacklustre progress in the last chapter I need to write before revising the entire thesis manuscript.
Music fatigue: there and back again
Just the other day, I received the yearly notification from Spotify: my “Wrapped” was now ready. For those of you who remain blissfully unaware of music streaming dynamics, “Wrapped” is a fancy recap that finds potentially funny statistics based on the data available about your listening habits. For example, my results include:
The artists and songs listed above did not come as a surprise. What impressed me in Spotify’s quantitative outlook, instead, is that I barely listened to any music at all between May and October. The barely modifier is important because Spotify does not concentrate my entire musical experience. I ended up listening to some music whenever my wife would put something on speakers instead of using headphones. Also, some of my favourite songs are not available on Spotify, or at least not in my favourite versions. Still, there was a sharp drop in my engagement with music for almost half a year.
It was strange to see such a blip in my listening habits. Despite my lack of anything resembling artistic skills, music has been an important part of my life over the last 15 years or so. The specific artists changed considerably: I now listen to way more Taylor Swift and Motown, and way less metal, than I did in my teenage years. But I used to do some of my best work with a soundtrack in the background. And, like many people, there are songs and artists that I closely associated with particular periods or developments in my life. In short, I was the kind of person that would listen to music all the time.
In retrospect, I do not think that my musical hiatus was caused by any particular event. It is true that I was barely adding new artists to my playlist, but that was also the case for a number of years now. I cannot blame the shift on any artists dying or becoming repulsive, as so many of my favourite artists have been dead or retired for a while now. Depression is not at fault, either: my consumption of music is usually intensified when I cannot care about other things, and I am having an unprecedented good period in life. And I still had a need for background noise, which would be easier to address if I did not find podcasts absolutely unbearable. Instead, it felt like nothing could scratch my musical itch anymore, so I stopped trying.
That is no longer the case, it seems. For the last month or so, my listening habits seem to be back to normal. I am still not sure why, as I still listen to basically the same stuff I liked before. What changed, then? It seems that the pause helped me look at old tastes with new eyes. But what also helped was getting some good musical recommendations from BlueSky mutuals. Even though I ended up not adding many of the recommended artists to my preference set, engaging with the recommendations helped me think more about what I actually like in music. That said, please feel free to recommend me some music, especially if it is not in English.
It was interesting, and of course creepy, to see how some of the ways in which I am changing in my 30s manifest themselves in my platform usage.1 Sometimes a quantitative outlook can be useful as a tool of introspection, one that I would be too lazy or uninterested to pursue on my own. So, I kinda enjoyed looking at my Wrapped this time.
Before wrapping up, it bears repeating that none of that comes for free. Feeding this analytics exercise requires the collection of an awful lot of data about user habits, which in turn feeds Spotify’s use of recommender algorithms. Also, music streaming is grounded on a business model that pays very little to most artists made available on the platform, even those who reach a considerable audience. These issues are just the tip of the iceberg, but smarter and more informed people than me have already provided insightful discussions of them. You should go and read them on these topics. But, for now, I will allow myself to be a bit more solipsist and focus on what Wrapped tells me about myself. And leave you with some music:
Recommendations
Recently, I decided to go back to a book I read in my formative years: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I was prompted to it by procrastination half-remembering a quote about the Somebody Else’s Problem Field which had much to do with a point I am developing in my thesis. The experience was…curious: I still loved the first book, but the following ones could not hold my attention and I decided not to re-read books 4 and 5. Still, if you haven’t read the Guide yet, you are likely to have some fun and find interesting insights about life, the universe, and everything.
In another sci-fi recommendation, the first three episodes of For All Mankind season 4 were already more interesting than the entire third season. Now that the writers are firmly on territory that is quite divergent from the real world, they seem to be more comfortable, and the mix between old and new characters is going well so far. I am particularly interested on the developments in the alt-USSR, let’s see how that goes.
For those of you who are Spanish speakers (or not averse to subtitles), Vida Perfecta is a Spanish dramedy set in Barcelona. It follows María, a woman in her 30s who has clearly defined plans for her life, and her sister Esther and friend Cris, who step in when these plans (and their own) start to derail. The show is brief (14 half-hour episodes over two seasons), so I would suggest that you try it and see if the show is your cup of tea.
Now, for the more formal recommendations:
Filipe Brito Bastos and Przemysław Pałka, ‘Is Centralised General Data Protection Regulation Enforcement a Constitutional Necessity?’ [2023] European Constitutional Law Review FirstView.
Gareth Davies, ‘How the Court’s Path Dependence Affects Its Role as a Relational Actor’ (2023) 2 European Law Open 271.
Simon Evans and Verner Viisainen, ‘Revealed: How Colonial Rule Radically Shifts Historical Responsibility for Climate Change’ (Carbon Brief, 26 November 2023)
Bert George and others, ‘Writing Impactful Reviews to Rejuvenate Public Administration: A Framework and Recommendations’ (2023) 83 Public Administration Review 1517.
Joe Mariani and others, ‘The AI Regulations that Aren’t Being Talked about’ (Deloitte Insights, 2023)
Jonas Schuett, ‘Three Lines of Defense against Risks from AI’ [2023] AI & Soc.
Lyn KL Tjon Soei Len, ‘On Politics and Feminist Legal Method in Legal Academia’ in Marija Bartl and Jessica C Lawrence (eds), The Politics of European Legal Research (Edward Elgar Publishing 2022).
Finally, I would like to point you to Emmie Hine’s newsletter The Ethical Reckoner, which provides timely and insightful comments on emerging technologies from technical and ethical perspectives.
Opportunities
The Institute for Information Law (IViR), Amsterdam Law School, University of Amsterdam is looking for a Researcher. Candidates must have a master’s degree on intellectual property, information law, or a related field, and send their applications before 5 January 2024.
Maastricht University is looking for two Associate Professors in tech-related areas: one for Law and AI and one for Information Technology Law. Both positions are based in the Department of Private Law and the Maastricht Law and Tech Lab, and they accept applications until 20 December 2023.
The deadline for the STS-MIGTEC Workshop 2024: Data Matters in Migration and Border Control has been extended to 14 December 2023. They invite contributions on related topics to either an open panel or one of the four thematic panels that have been already defined. The conference itself will take place in Utrecht between 8 and 10 April 2024.
Finally, the otters
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And I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the newsletter more generally and on topics connected to AI, Law, and other interests covered in these issues.
The dust currently accumulating in my Steam account is another of those changes. Not an unavoidable consequence of age, but a contingent developed in the way my interests evolved over the years.