Robert Diab

Professor of law at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia, writing about topics in law and technology, and constitutional rights. More here.

Recent commentary

  • “Google’s AI Podcasts Signal a New Era in Media”
    CIGIonline (14 November 2024)
  • “The Reasons for Shutting Down TikTok in Canada Appear Tenuous at Best”
    The Conversation (11 November 2024)
  • “Why new AI Tools for Legal Research Fail to Deliver the Goods”
    Canadian Lawyer (8 November 2024)
  • “Apple Intelligence Will Help AI Become As Commonplace As Word Processing”
    The Conversation (21 October 2024)
  • “What Made-in-Canada Legal AI Can and Can’t Do Well”
    CBA National Magazine (9 October 2024)
  • “Has the US Supreme Court Made It Harder to Regulate Social Media — or the Opposite?”
    CIGIonline (22 July 2024)
  • “The Case for Mandating Finer-Grained Control Over Social Media Algorithms”
    Tech Policy Press (12 July 2024)
  • “The Online Harms Act Should Target Social Media’s Greatest Harm”
    Policy Options (30 May 2024)
  • “Is AI About To Replace All Human Writing? Not So Fast”
    Newsweek (25 April 2024)
  • “Why Ontario School Boards Are Suing Social Media Platforms for Causing an Attention Crisis”
    The Conversation (29 March 2024)
  • “Does TikTok Pose a Security Threat to Canadians?”
    The Conversation (15 March 2024)

Selected research

  • “Too Dangerous to Deploy? The Challenge Language Models Pose to Regulating AI in Canada and the EU” (forthcoming 2024) UBC Law Review PDF
  • “Search Engines and Global Takedown Orders: Google v Equustek and the Future of Free Speech Online” (2020) 56:2 Osgoode Hall Law Journal 231 PDF
  • “The Road Not Taken: Missing Powers to Compel Decryption in Bill C-59, Ticking-Bombs, and the Future of the Encryption Debate” (2019) 57:1 Alberta Law Review 267 PDF