Free Range with Mike Livermore

On this episode of Free Range with Mike Livermore, Mike speaks with Boston University School of Law professor Madison Condon about the interaction between corporate governance and environmental concerns. Condon has written extensively on how corporations are changing their approach to the environment in the face of climate change issues and the rise of ESG investing, which incorporates Environmental, Social, and Governance considerations into larger investment strategies.

The conversation starts off with a discussion of the influence of massive investment funds like BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street in the world of corporate governance. These funds are so large that they are now capable of exerting considerable influence over corporate decisions. Condon introduces the concept of Universal Owner theory in the corporate world: institutional investors have such diversified portfolios that it is now in their best interests to care about the environment (1:04 – 7:18). This leads into an analysis of activist investment fund Engine No. 1 which, in 2021, engaged in a successful proxy battle to gain seats on ExxonMobil’s board of directors. Condon also touches on broader questions of whether the strategy employed by Engine No. 1 to win the proxy battle opens the door for potential antitrust violations, and the benefits and drawbacks of shareholder primacy. Expanding on these questions, Livermore and Condon discuss a hypothetical situation in which an institutional investment fund acts to benefit itself at the expense of a company’s continued existence, and what this behavior might implicate more generally (8:40 – 21:50). Condon then talks about one of the potential outcomes of activist investment — a rise in shareholder derivative suits alleging that boards have breached their fiduciary duties. This part of the conversation hits on various aspects of corporate law, including the scope of the business judgment rule and the significance of Delaware in America’s corporate legal regime (23:43 – 31:45). The conversation then shifts to a discussion of the divestment movement as a strategy to influence corporate behavior in the environmental context, the way corporations have engaged in greenwashing in response to the divestment movement’s demands, and the rise of ESG in corporate decision-making (31:51 – 48:52). The conversation concludes with Condon clarifying her position regarding just how influential investment funds can actually be in affecting action to slow climate change (50:21 – 55:30).

Professor Michael Livermore is the Edward F. Howrey Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. He is also the Director of the Program in Law, Communities and the Environment (PLACE), an interdisciplinary program based at UVA Law that examines the intersection of legal, environmental, and social concerns.

On this episode of Free Range, Mike Livermore speaks with Willis Jenkins, the John Allen Hollingsworth Professor of Ethics and Chair of the University of Virginia’s Department of Religious Studies. In an enlightening conversation that flows from the nature of the humanities to the way in which concerns about access to water are thought about within the academy, Jenkins explains how his work brings together three distinct but connected concepts: religion, ethics, and the environment.

This wide-ranging conversation begins with both Livermore and Jenkins questioning the strange space the humanities occupies within academia, with both suggesting that perhaps the phrase is not fit for purpose (:43 – 4:52). Providing an example of just how interdisciplinary the humanities has become, Jenkins then discusses a project he is involved with as part of UVA’s Environmental Resilience Institute. The project examines the central problem of water security, and Jenkins explains what that means, why it is important, and how the group attempts to reconcile the different interests and values that weigh on society’s water demands (5:30 – 16:10). The discussion then flows (pun intended!) into a conversation about the difficulties that scientists are confronted with when they are asked to provide objective answers to fundamentally subjective questions, whether the “trust the science” approach is the best option for a cohesive society, and whether democracies can survive climate change (16:25 – 27:24). The focus then shifts to a different project Jenkins is working on, the Coastal Futures Conservatory, which combines the arts, the humanities, and scientific analysis in order to better understand the effects of climate change. Jenkins talks about a number of the Conservatory’s various projects, including the creation of sound installations in an abandoned coastal hotel on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, the incorporation of indigenous story-telling, and the conversion of data inputs into acoustic recordings. This, in turn, leads to questions about how societies will process the inevitable losses, of territory and of culture, that will occur as a result of climate change (27:30 – 43:10). The final project Jenkins discusses is Sanctuary Lab, a multidisciplinary program that examines the effect climate change will have on sacred spaces, and how the cultural traditions associated with those spaces can be preserved in the future (43:40 – 53:40). The conversation concludes with Jenkins briefly explaining the intersection of religion and the environment in the context of contemporary American politics (54:00 – 1:00:37).

Professor Michael Livermore is the Edward F. Howrey Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. He is also the Director of the Program in Law, Communities and the Environment (PLACE), an interdisciplinary program based at UVA Law that examines the intersection of legal, environmental, and social concerns.

On this episode of Free Range, Mike Livermore speaks with sovereign debt experts Lee Buchheit and Mitu Gulati. Buchheit is a retired partner at international law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, whose practice centers on international debt restructuring and project finance. He has worked on more than two dozen sovereign debt restructuring deals, including leading the team that advised the Greek government during its 2012 debt crisis. Mitu Gulati is the John V. Ray Research Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. In addition to his academic work, he is the host of Clauses and Controversies, a podcast which examines the intersection of international finance and contract law.

To start off, Buchheit and Gulati provide a bit of background into their careers and how the field of sovereign debt restructuring re-emerged in the 1980s, fifty years after it first appeared in the wake of the Great Depression. Buchheit then provides a detailed explanation of what, exactly, sovereign debt is, how it functions on the international stage, and its advantages and drawbacks, and then describes the kinds of circumstances that can cause nations to seek to restructure their debts (1:15 – 21:22). Continuing on from this, Buchheit explains the sovereign debt restructuring process, like the one Greece went through in the early 2010s, when the situation was so dire that some even suggested Greece sell the Acropolis (22:10 – 27:40). The conversation then shifts to analyzing broader questions about the current structure of global debt, and the potential sovereign debt crisis that looms over the global economy (28:52 – 41:00). The podcast concludes with a long discussion about a recent debt restructuring deal Buchheit worked on for the government of Belize, which incorporated certain environmental conservation goals as conditions of the restructuring. The specifics of the deal lead Gulati and Livermore to raise questions about whether sovereign debt contributes to economic disparities between the Global North and Global South (42:00 – 1:20:18).

Professor Michael Livermore is the Edward F. Howrey Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. He is also the Director of the Program in Law, Communities and the Environment (PLACE), an interdisciplinary program based at UVA Law that examines the intersection of legal, environmental, and social concerns.

On today’s episode, Mike Livermore speaks with Assistant Professor Camilo Sánchez, the Director of the University of Virginia School of Law’s International Human Rights Clinic. Their conversation covers everything from Latin American history to the intersection of constitutional law and international law. These threads come together in the Guapinol Case, one of the clinic’s major projects. In that matter, Professor Sánchez and his students collaborate with international organizations to advocate on behalf of a group of eight illegally-detained environmental defenders in Honduras.

The conversation begins with Professor Sánchez talking about his background and what sparked his interest in international law (00:40 – 2:40). Professor Sánchez explains the importance of international law in the Latin American context, and describes how domestic politics and international law interact with each other in the region (2:45 – 10:35). The discussion examines the intersection of human rights and environmental law issues by looking at the work being done by UVA Law’s International Human Rights Clinic in the Guapinol Case (10:45 – 29:00). Livermore and Sánchez discuss environmental rights in constitutional and international law. Professor Sánchez describes and summarizes three distinct approaches to this idea: philosophical, legal, and practical, and then explains how rights litigation has played a role in establishing norms that allow for distinct commercial and social interests to coexist (29:53 – 49:45). The conversation concludes with an affirmation of the importance of cooperation between legislatures and courts to ensure development that is sustainable and equitable (50:35 – 1:04:30).

Professor Michael Livermore is the Edward F. Howrey Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. He is also the Director of the Program in Law, Communities and the Environment (PLACE), an interdisciplinary program based at UVA Law that examines the intersection of legal, environmental, and social concerns.

On this episode of Free Range, Mike Livermore speaks with Dr. Deborah Lawrence, a Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, about her research on land use and the connection between deforestation and climate change. In this discussion, Lawrence provides an in-depth explanation of the role forests play in affecting the global climate and then discusses how climate scientists use mathematical modeling to project the future of climate change.

Professor Lawrence begins by describing how she developed her interdisciplinary approach to studying land use, which she calls “Food, Fuels and Forests” (2:30 – 5:30). This approach recognizes that the surface of the earth is a finite good, so the decision to use a part of it for one thing necessarily means it is not being used for another. Lawrence and Livermore then discuss the current state of carbon capture technology (5:55 – 13:25). Professor Lawrence explains that one of the fundamental flaws in most climate change models is the fact that almost every model relies on carbon capture and sequestration technology that is either unproven (direct air capture) or prohibitively expensive (like BECCS – bioenergy with carbon capture and storage). The conversation then shifts to a discussion of the importance of forests in relation to climate change on both a global and local scale, with Professor Lawrence offering a detailed explanation of the process through which forests cool the planet (15:00 – 24:15). Lawrence then explains the role of modeling in climate change science, generally, and in her work specifically (24:30 – 44:35). Finally, Professor Lawrence provides insight into her research on land use, how land use decisions fit within the broader considerations of climate change science, and the benefits of approaching land use questions from a multidisciplinary perspective (45:00 – 59:45).

Professor Michael Livermore is the Edward F. Howrey Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. He is also the Director of the Program in Law, Communities and the Environment (PLACE), an interdisciplinary program based at UVA Law that examines the intersection of legal, environmental, and social concerns.

Mike Livermore speaks with ICA4 Fellow Ithai Rabinowitch, Assistant Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Faculty of Medicine. Rabinowitch specializes in neural circuits and neurobiology, and his current research is focused on exploring synaptic connections and the function of the nervous system.

Rabinowitch begins by explaining how his studies of industrial engineering nurtured his interest in neuroscience and brain function, eventually leading him to a career that combines aspects of both engineering and biology (:55 – 3:52). He then describes how his research engages in “forward-engineering,” describes how this is similar to, but distinct from, reverse-engineering, and explains how forward-engineering is used both in the field of synthetic biology generally (4:00 – 9:40). The discussion goes on to cover such topics as connectomes – the map of an organism’s brain wiring – and the ways Rabinowitch and his colleagues manipulate electrical synapses to enable brain neurons to communicate. Rabinowitch also describes the chain reaction between DNA and genome sequences that occurs during organism development (9:50 – 27:25). Delving more deeply into his work, Rabinowitch then provides an introduction to the C. elegans nematode worm, the first organism to have its entire genetic code sequenced and a key organism in the study of how brains are wired. He also offers a comprehensive explanation of the work he does with the worm, which includes analysis of worms’ neuronal activity during various sensory experiments, and how computer-based models are used to assist in altering synaptic responses in the worms (27:35 – 53:25). This leads to a discussion of the ethics of this kind of scientific experimentation, both in terms of C. elegans and more generally, with Rabinowitch signaling both the concerns and potential benefits of his work (53:30 – 1:01:19).

The Intercontinental Academia (ICA) is a global network of future research leaders sponsored by the University-Based Institutes of Advanced Studies. The ICA4 explores the complementarities between artificial intelligence and neuro/cognitive-science.

Henry Taylor speaks with ICA4 Fellow Michael Livermore, the Edward F. Howrey Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. Livermore is also the Director of the Program in Law, Communities and the Environment (PLACE), an interdisciplinary program based at UVA Law that examines the intersection of legal, environmental, and social concerns.

The podcast begins with Livermore speaking about his specialty areas, how he incorporates his interest in artificial intelligence and machine learning into his legal research, and how those interests fit within the legal field (:50 – 2:41). This leads to a conversation about the potential uses of AI in the context of the legal system, with Livermore providing an extended example of using machine learning algorithms in the criminal justice system. Livermore explains that AI and machine learning may help in determining flight risks, thereby potentially reducing the likelihood of detaining individuals unnecessarily, while also signaling the potential negatives of relying too heavily on these kinds of algorithms. (2:45 – 16:03). Expanding on this while continuing the hypothetical of the flight risk, Taylor introduces the complication of causal factors, with Livermore pointing out that relying on some causal factors, such as those related to bio-determinism, might be highly problematic (16:09 – 20:03). The conversation then focuses on the use of artificial intelligence in the context of making legal decisions, with Livermore explaining why there is a strong argument in favor of AI while also acknowledging that there are practical reasons for leaving legal decision-making power with humans (20:12 – 28:40). Picking up on one of the justifications Livermore provides for preventing full legal automation, Taylor asks Livermore to expand on why, exactly, we believe that individuals have a right to an explanation for a judicial decision (28:45 – 34:06). This leads to a discussion of AlphaGo, Move 37, and whether machines which are capable of learning are also capable of providing reasons for their decisions. Livermore compares this to the demands placed on contemporary artists to explain their work, or chess masters who play moves instinctually (34:12 – 46:42). The conversation then shifts to a focus on indeterminacy in the law and the artificial intelligence of natural language processing. Livermore states that AI has advanced to the point that some linguistic indeterminacy can be accounted for by the algorithm, but that there are invariably going to be errors, and we must establish what we are willing to live with in this regard. As an example of this, Taylor brings up the case of the person who sued his parents for giving birth to him, which Livermore describes as a perfect illustration of where a machine may fail. This, in turn, leads to a discussion of jury nullification, the controversial practice of a jury refusing to convict an individual who would otherwise be found guilty because the jury believes the law in question is unjust (46:50 – 1:00:14). The conversation ends with a discussion of whether artificial intelligence could be programmed to respond with empathy, and the significance of empathy in the legal system more generally (1:00:25 – 1:07:00).

The Intercontinental Academia (ICA) is a global network of future research leaders sponsored by the University-Based Institutes of Advanced Studies. The ICA4 explores the complementarities between artificial intelligence and neuro/cognitive-science.

Mike Livermore speaks with ICA4 Fellow Alex Cayco-Gajic, a Junior Professor at the Group for Neural Theory at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. Her work centers on neuroscience and brain function

Cayco-Gajic begins by describing how, despite having a background in mathematics, “academic peer pressure” convinced her to shift her focus away from math and toward neuroscience, and goes on to explain that she continues to incorporate certain aspects of her math background into her current research. She also explains how technological advances expanded the technical to neurological researchers, to the extent that the utilization of mathematical concepts is now vitally important to the field (:40 – 10:38). Cayco-Gajic then discusses her research on the cerebellum, the part of the brain that controls coordination and movement, and the overall state of neuroscience at the moment (10:48 – 18:35). The conversation then examines various tools and techniques that neuroscientists use when studying the brain, ranging from functional magnetic resonant imaging (fMRI) to more invasive procedures, with Cayco-Gajic explaining that the field is currently in an exciting moment of continual innovation (18:50 – 24:00). Returning to questions regarding her research, Cayco-Gajic provides an in-depth explanation of the kind of work that she and her colleagues do, discussing the basics of neural networking, and Livermore raises the topic of lossiness in the context of neural networks with Cayco-Gajic responding to those concerns. This leads to a comparison of the efficiency of biological and artificial neural networks, and a more general discussion of how and why brains retain and discard information (24:10 – 43:10). The conversation then shifts to an analysis of embodied cognition, and the ways in which the interconnected nature of neural networks contribute to overall cognition (43:20 – 50:05). The conversation concludes with Cayco-Gajic summarizing recent research into the brain’s decision-making and behavioral and sensory information encoding processes (50:10 – 59:55).

The Intercontinental Academia (ICA) is a global network of future research leaders sponsored by the University-Based Institutes of Advanced Studies. The ICA4 explores the complementarities between artificial intelligence and neuro/cognitive-science.

Mike Livermore speaks with ICA4 Fellow Suranga Kasthurirathne, an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine. Kasthurirathne is also a Research Scientist at the Clem McDonald Center for Biomedical Informatics at Indiana University’s Regenstrief Institute, and his work focuses on data analytics and machine learning in the healthcare context.

To begin with, Kasthurirathne offers some insight into his background, and describes how his experience developing health information infrastructure for under-resourced nations inspired an interest in data analytics. This leads to a discussion about the divide that exists between wealthy nations and poor nations, the economic disparities that exist within wealthy societies, and how artificial intelligence and information technology can help to bridge those gaps (:55 – 8:56). Kasthurirathne then speaks about how he uses AI in his research analyzing unstructured text data and natural speech, and the various tools that are used to analyze this data. One of the challenges that healthcare data analysts face is the strict rules regarding protection of medical records, meaning that there are significant barriers to access to data (9:00 – 26:17). Kasthurirathne goes on to explain the approaches that are taken to establish the models that data analysts use in their daily work. This part of the discussion also talks about the types of modeling systems healthcare data analysts use, and the positives and negatives of different systems. Kasthurirathne also explains the role predictive models play in the function of healthcare. (26:38 – 42:48) He also goes on to discuss the “garbage in, garbage out” problem of bias in models, the steps scientists are taking to avoid negative bias, and explains how some kinds of “bias” in modeling systems is not simply tolerable but, in fact, beneficial. This leads to a projection of how AI will evolve in the years to come, including how AI and data analytics may be able to evaluate the efficacy of different treatments and procedures, something that has already begun in some places (42:50 – 52:17). The conversation wraps up with Kasthurirathne describing the challenges his industry has faced in the wake of the Covid crisis, and how healthcare data analysts have responded to those challenges (52:43 – 1:00:23).

The Intercontinental Academia (ICA) is a global network of future research leaders sponsored by the University-Based Institutes of Advanced Studies. The ICA4 explores the complementarities between artificial intelligence and neuro/cognitive-science.

Mike Livermore speaks with ICA Fellow Dr. Philipp Kellmeyer, head of the Neuroethics and AI ethics Lab at the University Medical Center, Freiburg. Kellmeyer’s research focuses on the intersection of neurotechnology, ethics, artificial intelligence, and big data. In addition to his academic work, Kellmeyer is a board-certified neurologist.

The podcast begins with Kellmeyer discussing his background and how a medical practitioner ended up working in the field of neurotechnology (:40 – 4:55). He then summarizes the current state of neurotechnology, with a focus on deep-brain stimulation, which Kellmeyer describes as the most advanced area of the field. This leads to a longer discussion about the current and potential applications of deep-brain stimulation beyond its most well-known use in treating Parkinson’s Disease. This part of the discussion also incorporates aspects of Kellmeyer’s work on ethics, such as the potential ethical issues that arise as a result of the expanded use of neurotechnology (5:05 – 23:07). Continuing with this idea, Livermore and Kellmeyer delve into a number of hypothetical scenarios regarding data monitoring and the sweeping ethical questions such scenarios might raise (23:17 – 37:32). Shifting topics, Kellymeyer then discusses the four key concerns that drive his research: privacy, identity, agency, and equality. Using the example of cell phone video technology serving to drive social justice movements, the conversation touches on the difficulties of forecasting the unintended and unexpected consequences of technology, and how machine learning may assist in improving this forecasting. Kellmeyer also signals the risks of what he calls “technological solutionism,” the idea that technology can solve all our problems (37:40 – 57:35). The conversation ends on a positive note, with Kellmeyer explaining how examining the concept of human agency can help society to determine the approach it wants to take regarding the interaction between humans and technology (57:40 – 1:03:00).

The Intercontinental Academia (ICA) is a global network of future research leaders sponsored by the University-Based Institutes of Advanced Studies. The ICA4 explores the complementarities between artificial intelligence and neuro/cognitive-science.