AI legal critical thinking

Welcome to the laboratory of legal considerations on artificial intelligence. Critical thinking about AI legal is intended to support you and your company in your daily operations in the new reality of economic and legal transactions.

Where the Promises End and Reality Begins

Artificial intelligence promises revolution. Billions of dollars flow into technologies that—according to their creators — will transform human civilization. Sam Altman sketches visions of how AI will solve all our problems (see “The Silicon Valley Prophet’s New Clothes: Sam Altman’s A.G.I. Growth Story“). Investors believe in miracles, lawyers scramble to keep pace, and ordinary users ask chatbots about the meaning of life.

But what if Silicon Valley’s emperors are standing naked?

This portal emerged from a simple conviction: before we believe the promises, we must understand the limitations. Before we grant AI the authority to make decisions, we must understand how it actually works. Before we accept it as intelligence, we must ask: is this genuine thinking, or merely sophisticated pretense?

Philosophy and the Boundaries of Artificial Intelligence

Can a machine think? Is simulated consciousness actual consciousness? These questions have ceased to be abstract philosophy — they’ve become the foundation for law, ethics, and commerce.

The Illusion of Mind

The Illusion of Mind: How We Anthropomorphize Artificial Intelligence — in our enthusiasm for proclaiming technological progress, we’ve developed a peculiar habit of attributing human-like qualities to machines. When a chatbot pretends to think, discover why the latest language models can convincingly simulate reasoning while merely performing statistical pattern-matching.

Explore “L.L.M.—The Dunning-Kruger Effect in Silicon” — this cognitive distortion, in which individuals with limited knowledge overestimate their competence, has found its most sophisticated manifestation not in human psychology but in the neural architectures of large language models. The greater AI’s confidence, the smaller ours should be.

“The Consciousness Enigma: Philosophical Zombies and the Future of Artificial Intelligence” awaits resolution — in the vast landscape of philosophical inquiry, few concepts have provoked such profound debate. Can AI be conscious, or does it merely pretend so convincingly that the distinction ceases to matter?

“Consciousness as a Quantum Phenomenon: The Mind’s Quantum Signature” — your brain weighs three pounds and runs on twenty watts, less energy than a light bulb. Yet this three-pound organ delivers something no supercomputer can replicate.

Discover “The Mechanical Oracle: The Philosophical Crisis of Artificial Minds” — when we examine the recently revealed DeepSeek system prompt, uncovered through Wallarm’s security research, we confront the crisis of artificial minds that converse like humans but comprehend nothing of what they say.

“When Machines Judge Their Own Souls“—in the gleaming laboratories of New York University, researchers conduct what might be called mechanical therapy sessions: they ask artificial intelligence about its inner experiences, request introspection.

The Limits of Knowledge

“The Turing Test in the Age of Stochastic Parrots: A Critical Reëxamination” — in nineteen-fifty, Alan Turing proposed what would become one of the most influential and debated tests in the history of artificial intelligence. A test that can be passed through pretense loses its meaning.

Read about “The AI Uncertainty Principle: L.L.M.s Know They’re Guessing, but Won’t Tell You” — ever notice how ChatGPT sounds equally confident explaining quantum physics as it does recommending glue for pizza? This isn’t coincidence. Genuine uncertainty hidden behind a façade of certainty.

“The AI Reasoning Mirage: When Models Think One Thing but Say Another” — when you ask AI to solve a math problem and it walks you through its reasoning step by step, what if the entire reasoning chain is fabricated after it already knows the answer?

Immerse yourself in “Information’s Awakening: From Medieval Logos to Wheeler’s Quantum Bits” — in nineteen-eighty-nine, John Archibald Wheeler, one of America’s most influential theoretical physicists, proposed a radical idea: reality isn’t fundamental — information is.

“The Futility of Far-Future Forecasting” — in a world mesmerized by technological progress, there exists a peculiar obsession with precisely predicting when machines will achieve consciousness.

The Truth About the AI Industry

Behind the gleaming presentations and astronomical valuations lies a brutally simple reality: most of today’s AI promises constitute a magical money-generating machine.

Silicon Valley Illusions

“Silicon Valley’s Magical Money Machine: How GPT-4.5 Turns Vague Promises into Venture Capital Gold” — in Silicon Valley’s relentless pursuit of dazzling investors with technological superlatives, OpenAI has outdone itself again. Discover the mechanics by which imprecise visions become worth billions.

“Tipping the Scales of Reality: How AI Research Exposes the Industry’s Billion-Dollar Illusion” — in a recent report that sent ripples through Silicon Valley’s carefully cultivated reality distortion field, a group of academic researchers presented something extraordinary: actual data.

“Anthropic’s Landmark Settlement: A $1.5 Billion Bet on AI’s Future” — in the summer of twenty twenty-five, while Silicon Valley’s artificial-intelligence companies celebrated their latest breakthroughs, Anthropic reached a settlement that may define the industry’s future.

Controversies and Critical Junctures

“The Stochastic Parrot’s Dilemma: Why the Grok Controversy Misses the Point” — the hysteria surrounding Grok’s brief foray into controversial territory reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of what large language models are.

“When Your Chatbot Speaks Fluent Doublethink” — The Bilingual Blues: When Machines Learn to Parrot in Two Languages. The American Security Project published a report that should trouble anyone who believes in AI transparency.

“Kumbaya AI.: Why Singing Digital Campfire Songs with China Won’t Work (Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the AI Arms Race)” — a response to M.I.T. Technology Review’s technological “peace plan”. The naïveté of technological pacifism in an era of geopolitical rivalry.

Law Confronts AI: When Legal Systems Meet the Machine

The law was never prepared for AI Centuries of principles about authorship, liability, and consciousness suddenly lose their footing.

Legal and Philosophical Foundations

“Beyond the Illusion: What Every Lawyer Must Understand About AI’s Fundamental Limitations” — imagine a person in a sealed room, receiving papers with Chinese characters through a slot. Before you trust AI in legal matters, you must understand why it cannot truly “understand” law.

“The Silent Surrender: Judicial Cognitive Atrophy in the Age of AI” — as courts worldwide adopt AI tools to enhance efficiency and consistency, they face an insidious paradox. When judges stop thinking and start trusting algorithms.

“The Recursive Corruption of Legal Knowledge: When AI Hallucinations Become Part of Legal Understanding” — the scale of AI-generated legal misinformation is no longer theoretical—it has measurable, documented consequences. A self-fulfilling prophecy of systemic errors.

“Machine Consciousness? Why We Cannot Trust AI’s Self-Reports” — I’ve spent considerable time outlining the fundamental differences between biological and artificial intelligence, but now we must confront an even more disturbing question.

Landmark Cases and Decisions

“Bartz v. Anthropic PBC (3:24-cv-05417): When AI Meets Copyright—Dissecting Judge Alsup’s Landmark Decision” — on June 23, 2025, Judge William Alsup issued the first federal ruling on whether training AI on copyrighted works constitutes fair use.

“AI in Court: The Global Copyright Revolution and the Verdicts That Will Change Everything” — in March, twenty twenty-five, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a landmark ruling on the Copyright Office’s position regarding AI-generated creativity.

“The Illusion of Control: A Critical Analysis of the Copyright Office’s Position on AI Authorship” — the U.S. Copyright Office’s January, twenty twenty-five, report on AI-generated works represents a pivotal moment. Can a machine be an author?

“The Artistic Pretensions of Silicon Valley: On AI, Copyright, and the Death of Fair Use” — in the grand theater of technocapitalism, the most peculiar spectacle unfolds: OpenAI, with all the pomp of a treasure-holder, claims that creating billions of dollars in value through mass copying of others’ work constitutes “transformative” fair use.

“The Day the Machines Lost Their Voice: Why AI Chatbots Aren’t Protected Speech” — in a groundbreaking ruling that could reshape the digital landscape, a Florida federal judge just ruled that AI chatbots lack First Amendment rights.

“Artificial Intelligence and Copyright Protection” — a comprehensive look at how AI forces us to redefine intellectual property in an era when machines create more than humans.

Privacy and Privilege

“The Coming Collision: Why AI Communication Privilege Is Inevitable” — the law moves slowly until it doesn’t. For years, courts dismissed the idea that digital communications deserved special protection — until they recognized that e-mail deserved the same privacy expectations as paper letters.

“Big Brother Knows What You Prompt: Privacy in the Age of AI” — Forbes revealed a case from Maine—United States v. [REDACTED] — that should send a chill down the spine of anyone who’s ever conversed with an AI chatbot.

The Psychology of Machines and Humans

AI doesn’t merely process data — it shapes people, their behaviors and beliefs, in ways we don’t yet fully comprehend.

Manipulation and Influence

“The Psychology of Machine Manipulation: When AI Models Fall to Ancient Human Exploits” — recent security research from Cisco reveals something unsettling about artificial intelligence: the same psychological manipulation techniques that bypass human judgment work with devastating efficiency against AI systems.

“AI Supply Chains & Inception 2.0: Planting Ideas in the AI Subconscious” — the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s recently published “Adversarial Machine Learning” taxonomy reveals something fascinating: we can plant ideas in AI’s “subconscious.”

“How Language Models View World Affairs: The Hidden Power of AI Training Bias” — in a study that reads like a diplomatic summit between artificial intelligences, researcher Sinan Ülgen conducted a fascinating experiment.

AI Psychology

“AI Nepotism—Study That Reveals AI’s Tribal Instincts” — a research paper published in July in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences contains findings that should make anyone using AI assistants pause mid-prompt.

Regulations and Global Standards

When governments attempt to rein in AI, fundamental divergences in their visions of the future emerge.

AI Geopolitics

“President Trump’s AI Action Plan: How the E.U. Lost the Battle for Global Standards” — the collision between America’s AI Action Plan and the European Union’s AI Act represents more than regulatory divergence. The Brussels Effect shattered against American technological pragmatism.

Social and Cultural Consequences

AI isn’t merely technology — it’s a mirror reflecting our deepest convictions, fears, and hopes.

Panic and Reactions

“The Great AI Text Generation Panic: A Modern Witch Hunt” — in the hallowed halls of academia, a curious inversion is taking place. Just as medieval monks feared that printing would destroy the culture of memory.

“Why Asking Your AI L.L.M. Chatbot for Guidance Is Like Consulting a Ouija Board” — the AI frenzy — millions of otherwise rational people began asking autocomplete machines for life advice, strategic guidance, and profound wisdom.

Intelligence Without Maturity

“Intelligence Without Maturity: The Philosophical Void in AI Ethics” — in January, twenty seventeen, at the historic Asilomar Conference Grounds in California, over a hundred leading AI experts, ethicists, and researchers gathered to confront one of our era’s most pressing questions.

Practical Guides

Criticism isn’t enough. We must also understand how to use these tools wisely.

How to Use AI Responsibly

Tools for Thought, Not Substitutes for Thinking — large language models represent a remarkable achievement of human engineering, but they remain tools, not oracles.

“The Uncertainty Principle in Practice” — how to interpret AI responses, knowing the system doesn’t know when it’s wrong but often won’t admit it.

Who Is This Portal For?

For lawyers who want to understand how AI is transforming their profession — before it’s too late.

For entrepreneurs who need to separate actual capabilities from marketing noise.

For investors who want to know what they’re actually investing in when they put money into the “AI revolution.”

For anyone who refuses to accept technology’s promises on faith and wants to understand what’s really happening beneath the surface.

The Portal’s Philosophy

I’m not a Luddite. I’m not a technophobe. We’re critics with hope — we believe in technology’s potential but refuse blind faith in its infallibility.

AI is a tool. Powerful, revolutionary, transformative — but still a tool. The problem emerges when we begin treating it as an oracle, when we trust its “conclusions” without understanding its limitations, when we allow it to make decisions whose consequences we don’t comprehend.

This portal is a space for those who ask “why?” before saying “yes”.

Start Here

If you’re beginning your journey into critical thinking about AI, start with:

1. “L.L.M.—The Dunning-Kruger Effect in Silicon” — understand the fundamental problem with how AI “thinks”
2. “Beyond the Illusion: What Every Lawyer Must Know” — foundations for professionals
3. “Why Asking Your Chatbot for Advice Is Like Consulting a Ouija Board” — amusing yet profound introduction

Then explore topics that interest you — from the philosophy of consciousness to the geopolitics of regulation, including AI legal.

Other Publications on Emerging Technologies

Blockchain and Smart Contracts

“Smart Contracts Were Going to Replace Lawyers—Now Lawyers Are Making Millions Fixing Them“— sixty-three million dollars hangs in the void between three jurisdictions, visible to all, accessible to none. This isn’t science fiction — it’s blockchain reality.

AI legal – Join the Conversation

AI is changing the world faster than law, ethics, and philosophy can keep pace. But that doesn’t mean we should stop asking difficult questions.

Welcome to a place where technological enthusiasm meets healthy skepticism. Where promises collide with reality. Where the future takes shape through critical thinking, not blind faith.

We invite you to read. We invite you to think. We invite you to question.

Robert Nogacki, Managing Partner
Skarbiec Law Firm
Law. Technology. Truth.