Latest news with #JesseFurman
Reuters
05-05-2025
- Science
- Reuters
US judicial panel advances proposal to regulate AI-generated evidence
May 2 (Reuters) - A federal judicial panel advanced a proposal on Friday to regulate the introduction of artificial intelligence-generated evidence at trial, with judges expressing a need to swiftly get feedback from the public and lawyers on the draft rule to get ahead of a rapidly evolving technology. The U.S. Judicial Conference's Advisory Committee on Evidence Rules in Washington, D.C., voted 8-1 in favor of seeking public comment on a draft rule designed to ensure evidence produced by generative AI technology meets the same reliability standards as evidence from a human expert witness. The proposed rule is designed to address concerns about the reliability of the processes used by computer technologies to make predictions or draw inferences from existing data, akin to issues courts have long addressed concerning the reliability of expert witnesses' testimony. The reliability of testimony of expert witnesses who rely on such technology is already subject to scrutiny under the Federal Rules of Evidence. But the rules do not currently cover what would happen if a non-expert witness used an AI program to generate evidence without any knowledge of its reliability. Under the proposal, AI and other machine-generated evidence offered at trial without an accompanying expert witness would be subjected to the same reliability standards as expert witnesses, who are governed by Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence. The rule would exempt "basic scientific instruments." The proposal now goes to the Judicial Conference's Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, the top judicial rulemaking body, which will vote at its June meeting on whether to publish the proposal for public comment. Some judges expressed uncertainty about whether such a rule should ultimately be adopted, and a representative for the U.S. Department of Justice, Elizabeth Shapiro, was the lone vote against it, citing concerns about how it would be deployed. But committee members expressed a general view that they needed to at least get a draft rule out for public comment in order to gather information and avoid having the normally years-long rulemaking process prevent the judiciary from keeping up with the evolving technological landscape. U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman, a Manhattan-based judge who chairs the panel, said he was unsure whether he would ultimately back finalizing the rule but was "genuinely interested in what the world has to say about this thing." "I think sometimes when you put something out for notice-and-comment there's kind of an assumption that it's a train that's moving forward to final approval," Furman said. "Here I think there are a lot of questions that we need to work through." The proposal comes amid broader efforts by federal and state courts nationally to address the rise of generative AI, including programs such as OpenAI's ChatGPT that are capable of learning patterns from large datasets and then generating text, images and videos. Chief U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts in his end-of-the-year annual report in December 2023 cited the potential benefits of AI for litigants and judges while saying the judiciary would need to consider its proper uses in litigation. US judicial panel wrestles with how to police AI-generated evidence
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Columbia grad student Mahmoud Khalil's case moved to New Jersey, away from Southern judges
NEW YORK — Columbia University graduate student and pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil's case was transferred to New Jersey on Wednesday by a federal judge in New York, a key move that will keep any appeals in the case away from conservative judges in the South. Judge Jesse Furman's decision marked a compromise between Khalili's bid to keep the case in Manhattan and the Justice Department's attempt to move it to Louisiana. 'These conclusions flow from the undisputed fact that, at 4:40 a.m. on March 9, 2025, when Khalil's lawyer filed the Petition on his behalf, he was detained in New Jersey,' Manhattan Federal Judge Jesse Furman wrote. Attorneys for Khalil and the Trump administration had sparred over removing the case from New York City to the South, where he is currently being held in an immigration detention facility and will remain until a judge orders otherwise. A federal court in New Jersey acknowledged receipt of the transfer later Wednesday. Had the case been transferred to Louisiana, Khalil's lawyers would have had to target any appeals to the Fifth Circuit, considered the most conservative in the country. Khalil, who as a green card holder is a lawful permanent resident, is facing possible deportation for his participation in campus protests against Israel's war on Gaza and Columbia's investment ties to the Israeli regime. He has not been charged with any crimes. Instead, the government says his advocacy threatens foreign policy interests, citing an obscure provision of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act that empowers Secretary of State Marco Rubio to order a noncitizen deported after such a determination. Khalil was taken into custody by Homeland Security agents on March 8 after returning to his Columbia-owned apartment from dinner with his wife. Agents took him to lower Manhattan for processing and then to a detention center in Elizabeth, N.J., in the middle of the night, where he spent about eight hours before being transported more than 1,000 miles away to Jena, Louisiana. Upon his arrest, agents told Khalil's lawyer he would be taken to 26 Federal Plaza within the Southern District of New York, where the Immigration and Customs Enforcement website placed him for hours after he'd been taken out of the city — a technical lag the government said was due to it being the weekend. In his Wednesday order, Furman said, 'Khalil filed in the wrong district through no fault of his own; his lawyer reasonably relied on the information made available to her by the Government at the time of filing.' The judge reaffirmed a previous ruling that the government cannot remove Khalil from the country while his legal matters play out. 'In many ways, this is indeed an exceptional case, and there is a need for careful judicial review. Such judicial review is especially critical when, as here, there are colorable claims that the Executive Branch has violated the law or exercised its otherwise lawful authority in an arbitrary and discriminatory manner,' Furman wrote. The judge noted that dismissing the case, as the Justice Department partly argued for in its opposition to it being brought in Manhattan, 'might allow the Government to frustrate Khalil's effort to obtain judicial review of his claims by removing him from the country before a court could rule.' 'Requiring Khalil to refile his petition in the Western District of Louisiana … would also mean litigating far from his lawyers, from his eight-months-pregnant wife, and from the location where most (if not all) of the events relevant to his petition took place,' he wrote. Khalil's lawyers, who have two pending motions seeking his immediate release, say the Trump administration has violated his First and Fifth Amendment rights. They have said they believe the government moved rapidly to get him out of New York and down South the next morning in a bid to target the case to a more conservative court. 'This ruling sends a message loud and clear that Trump and his MAGA cronies cannot just manipulate and abuse the judiciary as they please to suppress the speech of activists for Palestinian rights,' one of Khalil's attorneys, Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement. 'This is an important step toward ensuring that the administration's unconstitutional practices are stopped in their tracks and that Mr. Khalil is reunited with his family in New York. We are ready to defend Mr. Khalil's rights in New Jersey to secure his immediate release.' Dr. Noor Abdalla, Khalil's wife, who is eight months pregnant, welcomed the ruling. 'This is a first step, but we need to continue to demand justice for Mahmoud. His unlawful and unjust detention cannot stand. We will not stop fighting until he is home with me,' Abdalla said in a statement. The student's detainment on ideological grounds has provoked widespread protests and concerns about the future of the right to free speech under Trump. The president and his senior cabinet members have framed any opposition to the Israeli regime and its military actions as antisemitic and supportive of Hamas, which the U.S. designates as a terrorist group. Khalil, 30, the grandson of Palestinians who grew up in Syria, played a prominent role in the demonstrations at Columbia last year, acting as a mediator between university staff and students, a role he was selected for based on his previous work at a British embassy and the United Nations. In a Tuesday night statement, Khalil said he'd been sleeping in cold facilities without a blanket and worried he would miss the birth of his first child. 'The Trump administration is targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent. Visa-holders, green-card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs,' Khalil said in a statement, which he dictated to his lawyers from detention. 'Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances, I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my first-born child.' A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment. _____
Yahoo
15-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
An AI imaging firm says Johnson & Johnson stole its tech. Execs on both sides are expected to testify next week.
Johnson & Johnson executives are scheduled to take the stand in a trial starting Monday. ChemImage, a small biotech firm, sued the healthcare giant over a 2019 partnership that went south. Johnson & Johnson had signed a multibillion-dollar contract with the Pittsburgh-based company. In 2019, Johnson & Johnson, hoping to compete in the growing surgical robotics field, signed a multibillion-dollar contract with a small biotech company called ChemImage. Based in Pittsburgh, ChemImage was pioneering AI-powered software that a surgeon could use in order to "see" what a robotic scalpel is doing. The images would help the surgeon form real-time assessments of damaged or cancerous tissue. On Monday, these former partners — the small biotech company and the global healthcare giant — are set to face off in federal court in Manhattan at a trial over a $1.5 billion breach of contract lawsuit ChemImage filed last spring. US District Judge Jesse Furman, who will preside over the weeklong bench trial, has since trimmed the allowable damages. If ChemImage prevails, it could win some $180 million in contract-termination penalties and other overdue payments. ChemImage has also asked the judge to restore all patents and intellectual property it developed under its contract with Johnson & Johnson. This would let the plaintiffs continue using and developing its imaging software. "This is a case about J&J's decision to retreat from its failed play in surgical robotics, breaking the promises it made to ChemImage to develop its life-saving imaging technology," the lawsuit alleges. "J&J's decision ultimately killed this family-founded company and its technology that could have vastly improved surgical outcomes for millions of people." What's undisputed is that two days after Christmas in 2019, ChemImage and the J&J subsidiary Ethicon entered into a 104-page "Research, Development, License, and Commercialization Agreement." The contract set a payment schedule — ChemImage received $7 million up front — and established milestones for future payments and as much as $1.5 billion in eventual royalties. Also undisputed is that in April 2023 — with the effort to meld ChemImage's software and J&J's robotics mired in delay and no commercially viable product in sight — the contract blew up. The judge is tasked with determining whether J&J pulled the contract for good reason — "with cause." If so, ChemImage would be entitled to no damages at all. Alternately, if J&J pulled the contract for no valid reason — without cause — the healthcare company would have been required to give ChemImage a 120-day notice and a $40 million termination payment, neither of which happened. ChemImage also alleges that an additional $140 million in incremental development "milestone" payments are due. Much of the testimony will involve opposing accounts of why the partnership went south after three years. J&J will present witnesses to show that the contract was terminated for cause, and so ChemImage does not deserve damages. In court papers, they allege that ChemImage failed to meet more than one developmental milestone after more than two years of work, and caused significant cost overruns. "Plaintiff was harmed as a result of its own conduct," J&J's lawyers wrote in January. ChemImage counters in court papers that the delays were caused by issues with Ethicon's own technology, employee turnover, and lack of engagement. Nine current and former J&J executives are on the parties' witness lists, including Hani Abouhalka, the surgery chairman for the MedTech division, and Rocco De Bernardis, the global president of robotic and digital surgery. Peter Shen, the MedTech division's former global head of research, is also on the list. ChemImage is also expected to call many of its own former executives, including its former CEO, Dr. Jeffrey Cohen. Read the original article on Business Insider
Japan Times
13-03-2025
- Politics
- Japan Times
Judge extends ban on deportation of U.S. student over opposition to war in Gaza
NEW YORK – A U.S. judge on Wednesday extended his order blocking federal authorities from deporting a detained Columbia University student, in a case that has become a flash point following a pledge by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump to deport some pro-Palestinian college activists. U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman had temporarily blocked Mahmoud Khalil's deportation earlier this week, and extended the prohibition Wednesday in a written order following a hearing in Manhattan federal court to allow himself more time to consider whether the arrest was unconstitutional. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says Khalil, 30, is subject to deportation under a legal provision holding that migrants whose presence in the country are deemed by the U.S. Secretary of State to be incompatible with foreign policy may be removed, according to a DHS document.
