Insights in ADR

The Deepfake Visual Evidence Trap: Why AI Protocols Belong in the Initial Procedural Order Stepping into a high-stakes commercial construction arbitration hearing or reviewing a claim file today, an astute adjudicator is increasingly forced to navigate an arena where digital reality is rapidly blurring. Driven by recent, egregious industry headlines surrounding legal professionals caught submitting AI-hallucinated case citations in court—lawyers who, shockingly, had absolutely no clue their filings were entirely fabricated until a judge publicly slapped them down—the arbitration and dispute resolution communities are on high alert. There is simply zero room for lazy case preparation in today's technological climate; yet, this procedural anxiety raises an immediate, urgent question for the commercial construction sector: if generative AI can seamlessly fabricate text, what is stopping a desperate party from manufacturing our most critical visual evidence? Whenever I engage in tact...

  Stepping into a high-stakes commercial construction arbitration hearing or a courtroom today, an astute observer is increasingly likely to witness the emergence of a bizarre, yet aggressively deployed, new legal strategy. Picture a multi-million dollar high-rise or commercial development facing crippling project delays, where, when pressed on why critical path sequencing logic was executed completely out of order—such as pouring concrete before structural steel inspections were finalized and signed off—the defense counsel points directly to a glowing monitor and boldly declares: “We cannot explain why the algorithm made this scheduling decision, and therefore, our client is not liable.” This ultimate modern attempt to pass the buck, shifting accountability from human project managers to autonomous AI scheduling tools, introduces what the legal community is now coining the “Black Box AI” defense; however, in the unforgiving arena of real-world dispute resolution, this defense is ...

  If you turn on the news or scroll through social media, the headlines about Artificial Intelligence sound like a sci-fi thriller. The media pushes "fear porn" that AI is an existential threat destined to take over mankind. Lately, that panic has shifted to a new target: Data Centers. The public narrative is drowning in confusion, painting these facilities as ominous, secret warehouses that are going to drain our rivers, bankrupt our electric grids, and leave citizens sitting in the dark. As a TechCred credentialed ADR professional and a 40+ year contractor, I say it’s time to filter out the BS. We need to take a deep breath and look at the actual facts on the ground. What the Public Fears vs. What Lawmakers Are Actually Doing Data centers are not an existential threat—they are simply the physical factories that power our entire digital economy. Every streaming video, cloud document, and AI prompt requires physical server space. The demand is massive and it is not going away...