Guest Post: David Colarusso
As Rebecca has noted, people are always asking those of us who teach about AI & the law some variation of, “How do you keep up with it all?” The real answer is long and not what most folks really want. So, here’s some advice. Just visit The Finite Scroll periodically. There. Done!
Too easy? Okay, you also need to vote up content you like (👍) and vote down (👎) content you don’t. If you don’t have a strong feeling and just want to clear out some content, mark it as “Seen.” And don’t worry, all of your votes live in your browser. The site doesn’t share them with anyone because it’s an open-source client-side algorithmically-driven RSS reader built at the Suffolk LIT Lab. By default the feed is tuned to return AI and law content. However, that focus will only hold until your preferences take over. Most importantly: you control the algo! Click “Settings” to fiddle with all the sliders you like. There are a lot of sliders.
If you find the default feed is a bit too “mainstream” for your liking, Rebecca’s list of resources for AI & law has you covered. That’s where you’ll find the deep cuts. But let’s make it easy. Click this link to load the AI Law Librarian Mix. Remember, this set of feeds leans a tad more technical than the default, and it doesn’t have the same general news coverage.
Regardless of where you start, you can always add new feeds. It is an RSS reader after all. Just hit the “+” button in the top right. You can also use the 🚫 icon at the bottom of a card to stop subscribing to a feed. Before you do this, however, I suggest clicking on the feed’s name to the left of 🚫. This will show you recent posts in the feed. Who knows, maybe you like some of what’s there and just need to aggressively vote down the ones you don’t like.
If 50 feeds (the rough size of the two starter lists above) strikes you as too small, I recommend clicking through to load the Fire Hose. It contains over 300 feeds (including the content of the AI Law Librarian and default feeds) ready for you to whittle them down into the perfect customized news experience. Maybe the Finite Scroll is your new homepage. It also works as a web app on your phone.
Did I mention you can bump or mute text? That’s right, if you never want to miss a post on AI Law Librarians, you can put “ailawlibrarians” under “Bump Up.” Never want to hear about a certain public figure? Place their name in “Mute.”
And that’s only some of what you can do under “Settings.” So, knock yourself out. Then tell all your friends. After all, using an RSS reader is “the one thing you can choose to do that will make your internet life better and make the internet better for everyone else, too.” Put another way, using an RSS reader lets you “escape newsletter inbox chaos and algorithmic surveillance by building your own enshittification-proof newspaper from the writers you already read.”
David is the Co-director of Suffolk University Law School’s Legal Innovation & Technology Lab. An attorney and educator by training, he has worked as a public defender, data scientist, software engineer, and high school physics teacher. He is the author of a programming language for lawyers, QnA Markup, an award winning legal hacker, ABA Legal Rebel, and Fastcase 50 honoree.