Category «Economy»

AI in Finance and Banking, January 31, 2026

This semi-monthly column by Sabrina I. Pacifici highlights news, government documents, NGO/IGO papers, conferences, industry white papers and reports, academic papers and speeches, and central bank actions on the subject of AI’s fast paced impact on the banking and finance sectors. Six highlights from this post: The FCA has launched a review into the implications of advanced AI on consumers, retail financial markets and regulators; The Dangerous Illusion Of Explainable AI In Modern Finance; Companies including Palantir and Deloitte have collectively reaped more than $22bn from contracts linked to Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown; Digital Economics and AI Tutorial, Spring 2026, Alfred P. Sloane Foundation; Speculative Growth and the AI; and Behavioral Economics of AI: LLM Biases and Corrections.

Subjects: AI in Banking and Finance, Economy, Education, Financial System, Legal Research

Hold Fast, Harvard

Since 2025 the Secretary of Education Linda McMahon has engaged in battles with major American institutions of higher education and research. Using the Trump administration’s Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, McMahon demands strict adherence to “educational principles” that include elimination of ‘DEI’ programs to quality for ‘preferential federal funding.’ In the case of Harvard University, this funding is on the order of $2.2 billion annually. Lawyer Kyle K. Courtney unravels the litigation at the heart of Harvard’s effort to preserve academic freedom and deny the administration another huge payoff with no transparency as to where the exortion money actually ends up.

Subjects: Economy, Education, Financial System, Free Speech, Healthcare, Legal Research, Medical Research, United States Law

AI In Finance and Banking, January 18, 2026

This semi-monthly column by Sabrina I. Pacifici highlights news, government documents, NGO/IGO papers, conferences, industry white papers and reports, academic papers and speeches, and central bank actions on the subject of AI’s fast paced impact on the banking and finance sectors. The chronological links provided are to the primary sources, and as available, indicate links to alternate free versions. Five highlights from this post: Markets brace for 2026 as investors flag potential AI overheating and uncertainty over Federal Reserve policy; Artificial intelligence and growth in advanced and emerging economies: short-run impact; Here’s what Wall Street bank CEOs are saying about head count in the age of AI; Why insurance companies should encourage solid AI risk management instead of excluding it; and SoftBank has completed its $40 billion investment commitment to OpenAI.

Subjects: AI in Banking and Finance, Economy, Financial System, Insurance Law

AI in Finance and Banking, December 31, 2025

This semi-monthly column by Sabrina I. Pacifici highlights news, government documents, NGO/IGO papers, conferences, industry white papers and reports, academic papers and speeches, and central bank actions on the subject of AI’s fast paced impact on the banking and finance sectors. The chronological links provided are to the primary sources, and as available, indicate links to alternate free versions. Six highlights from this post: How the AI ‘bubble’ compares to history; Artificial intelligence and growth in advanced and emerging economies: short-run impact; Generative economic modeling; The Emerging Market for Intelligence: Pricing, Supply, and Demand for LLMs; Macroeconomic productivity gains from Artificial Intelligence in G7 economies; and AI boom adds $500bn to net worth of US tech billionaires in 2025.

Subjects: AI in Banking and Finance, Economy, Financial System, Government Resources, Legal Research

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, December 20, 2025

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Four highlights from this week: Online Shoppers Beware — Study Finds Fake Delivery Sites Exploding Ahead of Holiday Rush; FBI Couldn’t Read Data Pointing to Pipe Bomb Suspect; Medicare.gov to deploy ID.me for beneficiary verification; and How to spot videos created by artificial intelligence.

Subjects: AI, Civil Liberties, Congress, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, E-Commerce, E-Government, Economy, Healthcare, Privacy, Social Media, United States Law

AI in Finance and Banking, December 15, 2025

This semi-monthly column by Sabrina I. Pacifici highlights news, government documents, NGO/IGO papers, conferences, industry white papers and reports, academic papers and speeches, and central bank actions on the subject of AI’s fast paced impact on the banking and finance sectors. The chronological links provided are to the primary sources, and as available, indicate links to alternate free versions. Five highlights from this post: FCA sets out plans to help build mortgage market of the future; GDP Nowcasting Performance of Traditional Econometric Models vs Machine-Learning Algorithms: Simulation and Case Studies; UK banks turn to AI for fraud prevention and to improve services. Tools help detect organised crime, automate lending checks and deliver personalised financial offerings; Firms harness AI tools in search for competitive edge.

Subjects: AI in Banking and Finance, Economy, Financial System, Legal Research

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, December 7, 2025

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Six highlights from this week: Admins and defenders gird themselves against maximum-severity server vulnerability; WhatsApp closes loophole that let researchers collect data on 3.5B accounts; Real or AI? The 7 Telltale Signs Every Fake Image Still Can’t Hide; Does a VPN really slow down your internet? I measured it; Google Starts Sharing All Your Text Messages With Your Employer; and Yep, Cloudflare died again. Here’s what happened.

Subjects: Computer Security, Cybercrime, Economy

The Trump Administration’s Continued War Against Science, Research and Public Health – Part 5

The fifth in a series by Sabrina I. Pacifici focuses once again on government resources, data and datasets that been taken offline, censored or otherwise altered to block access. As these data are no longer updated, the value and relevance to researchers decreases rapidly. These data operationalize critical work performed by federal government agencies and in concert with academic institutions and research institutions. The scope of this censorship has wiped out taxpayer funded research across across all subject matters, which until this administration, was openly posted on e-government sites for further exploration and enhancement by both the public and private sectors.

Subjects: Climate Change, Economy, Education, Energy, Environmental Law, Government Resources, Healthcare, KM, Legal Research

The Law Firm Pyramid Rollover

Heather Suttie is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s leading authorities on legal market strategy and management of legal services firms. In this article she addresses how artificial intelligence, pricing, and transience of the legal service sector’s workforce will cause the traditional law firm pyramid structure to rollover like an upending iceberg. The result? By 2030, global legal services will operate much differently than they do now.

Subjects: AI, Continuing Legal Education, Economy, Financial System, Leadership, Legal Profession, Management

The Imminent AI Bubble Crash (and Why It Won’t Matter in the Long Run)

This article examines why today’s AI boom resembles the dot-com bubble—soaring valuations, unprofitable companies, copy-cat entrants, and heavy speculation driven in part by infrastructure providers themselves. Drawing parallels from 1999 to now, Jerry Lawson argues that although an AI correction is inevitable, it won’t derail the long-term transformation AI will bring. The bubble will burst—but the technology will endure, and the real winners will emerge in the next wave.

Subjects: AI, Economy, Financial System, KM, Legal Profession, Legal Technology