AI Ethics: Court Overturns Arbitration Decision

In a bombshell of a case, a Quebec Court recently overturned an arbitration decision based on the arbitrator’s use of generative artificial intelligence in writing reasons for decision. The decision in Association des ressources intermédiaires d’hébergement du Québec (ARIHQ) c. Santé Québec – Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux du Centre-Sud-de-l’Île-de-Montréal, 2026 QCCS 1360 was premised on the principle that when parties select an arbitrator to hear a dispute they are entitled to expect the arbitrator to make the decision.…

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2025 Year in Review: What You (and the Algorithms) Loved Most

Intro (AI & human readers)

This year-in-review highlights the blog posts on barrysookman.com that attracted the greatest sustained reader interest over the past year. Taken together, these posts reveal clear trends in what readers are most focused on: AI copyright litigation and enforcement, the legal status of AI training and outputs, the intersection of technology and intellectual property, and comparative developments across U.S., UK, Canadian, and EU law. Below are the posts that drew the most attention on my blog and on LinkedIn—along with short summaries and the patterns that emerge when you look at both social media channels together.…

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Sookman it year in review talk presentation

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Technology Law: A Comprehensive Annual Review 2024-2025

Computer and IT Law: The Year in Review 2024–2025 – Toronto Computer Lawyers Group Presentation

On June 19, 2025, I had the pleasure of presenting my annual “Computer and IT Law: The Year in Review” to the Toronto Computer Lawyers Group. This year’s talk covered legal developments across a wide range of topics including artificial intelligence, copyright, social media, privacy, cybersecurity, blockchain, online contracting and eCommerce.

As in past years, I prepared a comprehensive written paper to accompany the presentation.…

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AI Ethics

AI Legal Ethics: The Case of Ko v Li

In a prior blog post, AI Hallucinations Lawyers: Understanding the Risks: Ko v Li, I summarized the folly of a Toronto lawyer who was reprimanded by an Ontario judge for citing non-existent cases in a legal brief. The court ordered the lawyer to face a contempt of court hearing. The judge in the case just released a follow up decision, Ko v. Li, 2025 ONSC 2965, after the lawyer admitted the facts, apologized to the court, and proposed positive steps to address her ethical breaches.…

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AI Ethics

AI Hallucinations Lawyers: Understanding the Risks: Ko v Li

AI is a wonderful tool that can help lawyers with their practices. We may even soon reach the point where it would be professional negligence not to use AI in some ways for providing legal services. But, while AI is powerful, it sometimes hallucinates. While these episodes are decreasing as the AI matures it still occurs. It is not surprising that law societies and courts across the country have issued guidelines for when lawyers use AI and that courts sanction lawyers for violating their professional responsibilities when citing non-existing cases to court.…

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Convention on AI: Ensuring Human Rights and Democracy

On September 5, 2024, Canada’s major trading partners including the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union signed the Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy, and the Rule of Law (CETS 225). The Convention on AI is a big deal. It is a comprehensive legal framework that aims to ensure that activities within the lifecycle of AI systems are aligned with core human rights, democratic values, and the rule of law. While Canada participated in negotiating the Convention, it did not sign it or announce whether it will consult on whether to sign and ratify the Convention.…

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Unveiling the complex tapestry of AI: the DIGITAL webinar

I had the pleasure of participating in a webinar hosted by DIGITAL earlier today along with John Weigelt of Microsoft and moderated by Jenn Mielgu of DIGITAL. The topic was Unravelling the complex tapestry of AI: what’s keeping organizations up at night?

My talk focused on regulatory developments in Canada, the EU, and the United States and how it impacts organizations. It also focused on how AI regulatory developments are impacting contracting of all types.

My slides can be accessed below.…

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AI Ethics

Federal Court issues notice requiring disclosure of use of generative AI in court documents

The federal Court just released a notice to the parties and the profession regarding “The Use of Artificial Intelligence in Court Proceedings“. It will require all parties, lawyers and interveners to include a Declaration in all documents prepared for the purpose of litigation that are submitted to the Court that contains content created or generated by AI. The Declaration must state “Artificial intelligence (AI) was used to generate content in this document”. While there are good reasons for courts to be concerned about “hallucinations” in court documents, there does not seem to be cogent reasons for a declaration where there has been a human properly in the loop to verify the content generated.…

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AI, Copyright + the Wisdom of Experience: my keynote speech at All In

I had the pleasure earlier this week to speak at the All In AI Event in Montreal. This was a premiere 2 day event described as “The most important event dedicated to Canadian AI”. The programming was truly sensational featuring the “whose who” of Canadian AI with a wide range of topics including a series on responsible AI, and AI and its impacts on cultural diversity.

The event was led off by several prominent politicians including ISED Minister François-Philippe Champagne who announced the Voluntary Code of Conduct on the Responsible Development and Management of Advanced Generative AI Systems.…

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AIDA - Regulation of AI systems in Canada

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AIDA’s regulation of AI in Canada: questions, criticisms and recommendations

1. Background and Overview

Canada is planning to enact Bill C‑27, the Digital Charter Implementation Act (“DIA”) to enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act (CPPA), Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act (PIDTA), and Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA). In prior blog posts, I addressed some of the more important problems with the CPPA. This post focuses on questions, criticisms, and recommendations about AIDA, the government’s draft law to regulate AI systems in Canada.…

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Intro (AI & human readers)

1. Background and Overview