The Roundtable
Welcome to the Roundtable, a forum for incisive commentary and analysis
on cases and developments in law and the legal system.
on cases and developments in law and the legal system.
 By Gabrielle Cohen
Gaby Cohen is a second-year student at the University of Pennsylvania’s College of Arts and Sciences studying philosophy, politics and economics. ChatGPT has generated intellectual property and copyright controversies and ignited debate among students, teachers, writers, artists, content creators, and employees of every kind. Released in November 2022, ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence chatbot powered by a large language model, which prompts it to perceive human language, evaluate and sort through immense collections of data, and produce replies [1]. The chatbot was developed by OpenAI, a startup based in San Francisco funded by prominent investors such as Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Microsoft. ChatGPT consists of generative AI, using algorithms to generate, summarize, and alter data [
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Duty of Vigilance: Holding Companies Responsible for Environmental and Human Rights Abuses3/23/2023  By Ella Sohn
Ella Sohn is a first-year studying English in the College of Arts & Sciences. Three environmental groups are taking Danone, a French yogurt and bottled water company, to court. The NGOs accused Danone in early January of failing to reduce the use of plastic within its supply chain. It is perhaps unsurprising that this particular company—France’s largest dairy group, and the world’s ninth largest plastic polluter—is facing a lawsuit over its environmental impact. Yet the fact that the lawsuit is a possibility at all stems from a groundbreaking duty of vigilance law, enacted by the French government in 2017, that has since spurred a wave of legislation expanding companies’ duty to address social and environmental problems. [1]  By: Alicia Augustin
Alicia Augustin is a first-year student at the University of Pennsylvania’s College of Arts and Sciences who plans to study Political Science and Urban Education. “How [are] we supposed to become better people if we can’t have any normal friendships, any normal conversations, any control over what happens to us?” Quoted from Mark Salzman, True Notebooks: A Writer’s at Juvenile Hall, a juvenile behind bars questions how he is expected to develop in a system that simply does not allow it. Despite a recent trend of youth incarceration rates declining, 48,000 minors in the United States are labeled as “juveniles,” living their lives within the carceral system [1]. These juveniles of various ages below 18 develop within a system that controls every aspect of their lives, being told when it is appropriate to eat, sleep, and socialize. Losing freedom in the U.S. when committing a crime is seemingly synonymous with losing one’s natural right to life, a right declared by the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Although the Declaration of Independence is not law, it serves as the foundation for U.S. law as we know it today.  By Sajan Srivastava
Sajan Srivastava is a sophomore from Piedmont, California, studying Economics. The February 2023 derailment of a freight train in East Palestine, Ohio, raises profound questions of who bears the legal, ethical, and practical responsibility for the environmental disaster. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources has estimated that the disaster, which released such toxic chemicals as vinyl chloride, has so far killed roughly 43,000 fish within a 5-mile radius of the derailment site. Considering that the city’s streams connect to the nearby Ohio River through five streams, it is abundantly clear that any hazardous chemicals released in the derailment have the potential to affect communities and ecosystems far beyond East Palestine and even Ohio. Nine states border the Ohio River watershed, and the river’s drainage into the Mississippi River poses a threat to the economic state of much of the country [1]. With the dangers of the released chemicals to humans unclear, it remains ambiguous whether government agencies can ethically advise residents to return to their homes and where the liability for potential damages to public health and economic well-being ultimately falls. |
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