November 10, 2025

“Humans can be held to account. Not AI.” I hear this often. But it’s not true. Corporations are non-human, but they can enter into contracts and face criminal charges. Ships can be sued directly. Courts can arrest the vessel itself. Deities and temples in India can own property. Forests and rivers in New Zealand, Colombia, Spain, have been granted legal personhood. Medieval Europe has held animal trials (e.g. for “guilty” pigs). ...

I always wondered why old movies are rated so high on IMDb. For example, 12 Angry Men (1954) with just ~900K votes ranks about as high as Inception (2010) with ~2M votes. Few people I know have seen 12 Angry Men. So where does this high rating come from? My theories were: Old movies really are that good. IMDb’s algorithm is biased towards old movies. People remember older movies fondly. Actually, it’s none of these. It’s selection bias. ...