konrad kollnig

prof @maaslawtech / computer scientist + mathematician + ethical hacker / associate @ODIHQ / @UniofOxford PhD / tries to make tech less awful

[konrad kollnig @FascinatingTech]

Feel humbled to have received very generous funding for my research. If you're looking for a #PhD position and have technical expertise, please reach out! We'll have an exciting team in Maastricht that seeks to design the future of artificial intelligence/machine learning. #AI

[Law in Maastricht @lawinmaastricht]

Last month, Konrad Kollnig was granted an AiNed Fellowship for his research project RegTech4AI, merging law and tech to navigate and contribute to the global challenge of regulating AI technologies. Read more about RegTech4AI: https://t.co/XcfpLFzpAJ

[Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський @ZelenskyyUa]

Thank you for your support! 🇺🇦
__

Дякую вам за підтримку! 🇺🇦

[konrad kollnig @FascinatingTech]

I'll be around London/Oxford/Edinburgh in the week of 3 March. Let me know if you'd like to connect. 📩

[konrad kollnig @FascinatingTech]

The work was led by the extremely bright and impressive Shaoor Munir. He's got a unique ability to write about and study legal topics, with a computer science angle. Do check out his profile and other work! @Shaoor_Munir

[konrad kollnig @FascinatingTech]

The US gov wants @Google to sell Chrome to stop Google' monopoly in online search. But don't we all love Chrome? ❤️Why then sell it ? Let me explain, having published the first in-depth research article about this with @zubair_shafiq @anastasia_shuba @Shaoor_Munir. 🧵1/9

[konrad kollnig @FascinatingTech]

Thanks for listening. The research wouldn't have been possible without the hard work of my co-authors.

The full paper can be found here: https://t.co/8XdryVYVHd

The slides here: https://t.co/ELQ0M7KwQs

A general-audience blog article here: https://t.co/nXZ4AHF8om

9/9

[Maastricht Law&Tech Lab @maaslawtech]

Legal innovators sought... 🔍

We're hiring a PhD student to explore Human-Centered AI and Law!

Conduct cutting-edge legal research using interviews & surveys to gain insights into AI regulation and how to improve it. 📚💡

Application details below 👇
https://t.co/sMh1NprXtc

[konrad kollnig @FascinatingTech]

🚨PhD student + team player sought. Please share, repost, or apply.. Are you passionate about how digital technologies affect citizens, curious about the social element of those technologies, and eager to work in a truly interdisciplinary team? Then, you may want to consider joining us in the #RegTech4AI project at the Law & Tech Lab in the beautiful city of Maastricht (Netherlands). As of this month, we already have a team of four outstanding interdisciplinary researchers, trying to define the future of AI & Digital Technologies.

Link to application site: https://t.co/wk6KiwWQGn

Project details: https://t.co/cN8gWoqkwb

[konrad kollnig @FascinatingTech]

I noticed that, too. It's a really good q. I think a big element of it is a lack of competition. By just having one search engine, lots of websites have become very good at optimising for high Google search rankings - at the expense of optimising for what people actually want.

Additionally, Google doesn't have an incentive to show you what you look for quickly but rather have you look at more and more ads..

[konrad kollnig @FascinatingTech]

In the US, Google was found to operate an illegal monopoly in online search. Surprising, right? Google it if you've not heard of it. The company now shared their rebuttal to any potential court-ordered remedies. I'll point out what I think of it.

➡️ "Forcing Google to share your search queries, clicks, and results with competitors risks your privacy and security." It's new to me that Google cares about privacy. They're the largest collector of data about people online. If they really cared about privacy, they should follow through with it. Instead, this strikes me as fear-mongering. https://t.co/BhS5jao4D3

➡️ "Hampering Google’s AI tools risks holding back American innovation at a critical moment." Google had had an AI chatbot like OpenAI's but chose not to release it. Incumbents are usually terrible at innovating when it potentially hurts their core business model, as famously found by Clayton Christensen. AI is one of them. It's Google incentive to hold back those efforts, insofar as they could disrupt information discovery online. https://t.co/3nyimKBvKV

➡️ "Splitting off Chrome or Android would break them — and many other things". Google claims these are open-source tools, when this is false and misleading. They're tightly controlled by Google and built to reinforce Google's other business lines in an anticompetitive way. My co-authors and I wrote a widely read paper on it. We think that critical digital infrastructure shouldn't be abused in the way that Google current does it. https://t.co/BhS5jao4D3

➡️ "Changes to the online advertising market would make online ads less valuable for publishers and merchants, and less useful for consumers" This is very speculative. We can't know this for sure. In the short-term, this might be true, as for any market disruption. Yet, we can wonder what the internet should be built for. Should it be built to support ads, as it does currently, or rather to support anything else, as most users probably wish? We don't turn to Google Search to study ads but this is what we get. Due to lack of competitive pressure, Search has gotten worse and worse over the past years. Google doesn't have an interest in letting you find information fast but rather showing you many ads on Google Search and also on third-party website, where, too, they told the largest market share in advertising provision. It's time to correct this.

➡️ "Unreasonable restrictions on how Google promotes our search engine would create friction for consumers and harm businesses." This seems to engage with the heart of the US court decision, which is Google's annual 20+bn USD payments to other companies to be the default search engine. Google acknowledges that it won't stand a chance to convince the court that this claim is true and therefore put this argument last in its list of arguments.

Source: https://t.co/l2rGUZIwtQ

[konrad kollnig @FascinatingTech]

@DouweKorff @lilianedwards Says who? I'm not optimistic

[konrad kollnig @FascinatingTech]

🇨🇳 New paper published. We looked at #China's 2021 privacy law—the #PIPL—and how it affected #privacy and #competition in #iOS apps. We find a sudden increase in consent banners + a more competitive digital landscape compared to EU/US + much more. Link: https://t.co/Es9hH3l1rn

[Eduard Fosch-Villaronga @eduardfosch]

🚨POSTDOC JOB ALERT!

@eLaw_Leiden at @LeidenLaw @UniLeidenNews
is looking for a #postdoctoral researcher for the @ERC_Research StG #SafeandSound project.

Wanna work with @eduardfosch & an amazing team on #science for #robot #policy?

Check it out! https://t.co/Zis8Q7aESF

[konrad kollnig @FascinatingTech]

On Monday, @Google officially became a #monopoly in the US, in the biggest antitrust ruling in decades. Most past scrutiny of Google focused on its dominance in online search and ads. @googlechrome is often overlooked, despite being key to Google's monopoly, as we argue.

https://t.co/nq2ZteEpZw

[ProMarket @ProMarket_org]

In new research, @Shaoor_Munir, @FascinatingTech, @anastasia_shuba and @zubair_shafiq explore how Google uses its web browser, Chrome, to maintain its dominance in other online markets, particularly advertising and search.

https://t.co/7VsVNe5TKz