Deborah Denno

Bio:
At Fordham Law School, Dr. Deborah Denno has conducted two large and widely attended symposia on AI (in 2018 and 2023). For both symposia, speakers submitted articles that were published as two volumes in the Fordham Law Review. In addition, the final chapter of Dr. Denno’s forthcoming book on neuroscience and the law (Oxford University Press) focuses on neuroscience and AI. Dr. Denno’s Center is planning another symposium on AI in the near future.

Selected works include:

  1. Deborah W. Denno, The New AI: The Legal and Ethical Implications of ChatGPT and Other Emerging Technologies, 92 Fordham Law Review 1785-96 (2024) (Symposium Foreword) (with Erica Valencia-Graham).

  2. Deborah W. Denno, Rise of the Machines: Human-Like Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and the Reprogramming of Law, 88 Fordham Law Review 381-404 (2019) (Symposium Foreword) (with Ryan Surujnath).

  3. Deborah W. Denno, Changing Law’s Mind: How Neuroscience Can Help Us Punish Criminals More Fairly and Effectively (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

Abstract:
Neuroscience—“the branch of life sciences that studies the brain and nervous systems,”—lies at the heart of some of the most cutting-edge advances in AI. Both neuroscience and AI researchers seek to understand human thought patterns, and neuroscience-inspired neural networking technology has the potential to guide the transition from big data and machine learning to full-fledged AI. Today, modern AI research has taken cues from neurological studies to replicate human cognitive functions in AI’s code. These discoveries are vital to the criminal justice system, where insights about the brain can help us in the quest to construct fairer and more effective treatment strategies. I have created an original empirical study ("Neuroscience Study") of all criminal cases (totaling over 9,000 cases) that addressed neuroscientific evidence over twelve decades (1900-2022). The Neuroscience Study provides extensive data that shows the use of neuroscientific evidence in courtrooms nationwide to better understand the impact of criminal laws on those being processed. My goal is that, at some point, the Neuroscience Study’s case coding process can be conducted by LLMs--a procedure I’d like to discuss--thus cutting costs and potentially enabling more just treatment for incarcerated individuals.