Episodes

  • From Copyright Infringement to Superintelligence: The Legal and Philosophical Future of AI

    From Copyright Infringement to Superintelligence: The Legal and Philosophical Future of AI
    May 20 2026
    What happens when the law meets a general-purpose cultural machine? In this episode, hosts Matteo Iuorio and Sofia Debernardi sit down with intellectual property expert Professor Giancarlo Frosio to unpack the massive legal battleground surrounding generative AI. We start with the immediate legal technicalities—separating the liability of tech companies training models from the liability of users prompting them—before sliding into the gripping, high-stakes philosophical landscape of what happens to human labor, law, and purpose as we race toward Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and superintelligence. Key Takeaways
    • The Two Legal Battlegrounds:Copyright issues with AI are split into two distinct phases: theTraining Stage(ingesting data to extract patterns) and theOutput Stage(whether an AI-generated result is "substantially similar" to a protected work).
    • Strict Liability & The Neutral Tool Dilemma:Copyright is a strict liability offense. Professor Frosio shares his perspective that AI labs are placing "neutral, general-purpose tools" on the market. Therefore, legal liability for an infringing output should ideally sit with the user prompting it—provided the developer implemented standard safeguards.
    • The Geopolitical AI Arms Race:Stricter text and data-mining copyright regulations in regions like Europe can function as a bottleneck for local tech development, inadvertently pushing the dominance of the AI "arms race" exclusively toward the US and China.
    • The Looming Threat to Purpose:As the operational capabilities of AI shift from narrow tasks to holistic human replication (AGI) and beyond (superintelligence), society faces a massive conundrum: if artificial entities can outperform human intellectual labor completely, what is left for humanity's sense of purpose?

    Terminology Glossary LLM (Large Language Model): Note: Mentioned contextually as "LMS" during the interview recording. These are AI programs trained on vast amounts of text data to understand, summarize, generate, and predict new content. Substantial Similarity: A fundamental legal doctrine used by courts to determine if an unauthorized reproduction has taken too much protectable expression from an original copyrighted work. AGI vs. Superintelligence: Narrow AI handles specific single tasks. Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) can holistically apply knowledge to any task like a human. Superintelligence refers to a theoretical future entity whose collective intellect far surpasses the capacity of the human brain. References & Links to Explore
    • Learn more about Professor Frosio's work and research at theGlobal Intellectual Property and Technology Centre (GIP Tech).
    • Check out the landmark pending litigation referenced in the episode:Getty Images v. Stability AIin the UK.
    • Learn about the European Union's framework discussed by reading the official documentation on theEU Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act).
    • To explore the philosophical warnings mentioned by the "Godfather of AI" Geoffrey Hinton on AGI and systemic alignment risks, check out hisNobel Prize lecturesand recent AI safety advocacy.
    • Read up on the historic sci-fi themes referenced at the end of the episode via Isaac Asimov’s classicFoundation Series.
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    50 mins
  • Punishment, Politics, and Legal Plunder: Joshua Page on the Long Struggle Over Criminal Justice

    Punishment, Politics, and Legal Plunder: Joshua Page on the Long Struggle Over Criminal Justice
    May 14 2026

    In this episode of LawPod, Dr Alessandro Corda is joined by Professor Joshua Page (University of Minnesota) for an in‑depth conversation tracing his intellectual journey through the sociology of punishment and the politics of criminal justice in the United States.

    The discussion is structured around Page’s three major books: The Toughest Beat, which examines the political power of prison officer unions in California; Breaking the Pendulum, which challenges simple narratives of cyclical change in criminal justice policy; and his most recent work, Legal Plunder, co‑authored with Joe Soss, which explores the predatory extraction of resources through the modern criminal justice system.

    Across the episode, they explore how penal policy develops over time, the role of organised interests and policy feedback, the limits of reform, and the ongoing struggles that shape punishment at federal, state, and local levels. The conversation also turns to contemporary debates over bail reform, fiscal pressures on local government, and the broader political economy of criminal justice.

    In the final part of the episode, Professor Page reflects on living in Minneapolis since the murder of George Floyd, discussing how community mobilisation, public trust, and resistance to state power continue to shape the city’s political and social landscape.
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    37 mins
  • The Duty to Assist: Law, Risk and Responsibility

    The Duty to Assist: Law, Risk and Responsibility
    May 7 2026
    What does the law expect us to do when another person is in immediate danger? And what happens when someone steps in to help — but is injured in the process? In this episode of LawPod, Dr Rosie Cowan and student host Eva Richards speak with Eoin Campbell, a Queen’s graduate and lecturer in legal English in Lyon, France. Eoin shares a powerful and deeply personal account of intervening during a violent attack in a residential car park in France, where he and another passer-by helped save a young woman’s life. The episode uses Eoin’s experience to explore the legal and moral questions surrounding the duty to assist: a concept recognised in French criminal law, but approached very differently in UK and common law systems. Content note This episode includes discussion of a violent assault, strangulation, serious injury, trauma, post-traumatic stress, and the aftermath of criminal proceedings. Listener discretion is advised. About the episode In UK law, there is generally no broad criminal duty to rescue or intervene simply because another person is in danger. Duties to act usually arise only in particular situations — for example, where there is a special relationship, professional responsibility, assumption of care, or where a person has created a danger. French law takes a different approach (Article 223-6 of the French Penal Code). It recognises a more general obligation to assist a person in danger, provided that assistance can be given without serious risk to the rescuer or others. This principle is often discussed in terms of non-assistance à personne en danger — broadly, failure to assist a person in danger. Eoin’s story brings this legal idea into sharp focus. His intervention was not abstract or theoretical. It happened in seconds, under pressure, and with serious consequences. The episode asks not only whether people should help, but also what support should exist for those who do. Key themes 1. The duty to assist in French law The conversation introduces the French idea that a person may have a legal duty to help someone in serious danger. That does not necessarily mean physically intervening in every case. Assistance might include calling emergency services, alerting others, or using available safety equipment. Eoin gives the example of seeing someone in difficulty in the sea. A bystander may not be required to swim out and risk their own life, but they may be expected to call for help or throw a life ring if one is available. This distinction matters: the law may encourage assistance, but it does not generally require a person to take unreasonable risks. 2. The limits of legal duties in moments of crisis One of the most striking parts of the episode is the gap between legal theory and real-life decision-making. As Eoin explains, when he saw the attack unfold, he was not weighing legal obligations or statutory wording. He saw someone in immediate danger and acted. That raises a difficult question: if the law says a person should help “if they can”, how realistic is it to expect someone to assess risk calmly in the middle of a violent emergency? The episode explores this tension between: legal duty;moral instinct;personal safety;public expectations; andthe reality of split-second decisions. 3. The UK and common law contrast Rosie places the discussion in its wider legal context by contrasting the French approach with the UK position. In common law systems, criminal liability is usually more cautious about punishing omissions — that is, failures to act. This does not mean that UK law is indifferent to people in danger. Rather, it tends to impose duties to act only in defined circumstances, such as where someone has responsibility for a child, patient, employee, or person in their care. The episode therefore raises a broader philosophical question: should law require solidarity between strangers, or should intervention remain primarily a matter of personal conscience? 4. Public messaging and state responsibility A central issue in the episode is whether public authorities can encourage people to intervene without also providing clear protection or support for those who are injured as a result. Eoin reflects on public campaigns urging people to challenge harassment, violence, and threatening behaviour. He does not reject the moral value behind those campaigns. Instead, he asks what should happen afterwards if someone does step in and suffers physical, psychological, or financial harm. This is one of the episode’s most important questions: If the state encourages people to protect others, what duty does the state owe to the people who do the protecting? 5. Compensation, recognition, and procedural uncertainty Eoin also discusses the aftermath of the incident, including his hand injury, later diagnosis of PTSD, loss of earnings, and attempts to obtain recognition or compensation. His experience highlights the complexity of being neither the original target of the attack nor a ...
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    28 mins
  • Digital Investigations Lab (Part 2)

    Digital Investigations Lab (Part 2)
    Apr 23 2026
    Learning, Trauma, and Truth: A Student Perspective on Digital Investigations What does it mean to learn law by documenting real harm in real time? In Part 2 of this two‑episode LawPod series, host Eva Richards is joined by Kenzie Brodie and Briana Mallon, postgraduate students at Queen's University Belfast, to explore the Digital Investigations Lab from the inside. This episode centres the student experience: how it feels to learn open source investigation techniques while working with traumatic material, contested narratives, and the very real lives behind the data. Rather than theory or institutional design, this conversation focuses on practice, the tools students actually use, the cases that stayed with them, the skills they didn't expect to develop, and how doing this work has reshaped the way they think about law, evidence, and responsibility. It is a frank, reflective discussion about learning by doing, and about the emotional and ethical dimensions of researching war crimes from a distance.
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    26 mins
  • Digital Investigations Lab (Part 1)

    Digital Investigations Lab (Part 1)
    Apr 16 2026
    Open Source Investigations, AI, and Accountability in Conflict What happens when war crimes are filmed in real time — but truth itself becomes contested? In this episode of LawPod, host Eva Richards is joined by Professor Luke Moffett and PhD researcher Lydia Millar, manager of QUB Law’s Digital Investigation Lab, for a deep dive into the fast‑evolving world of open source investigations and their growing importance for law, justice, and accountability. Together, they unpack how publicly available information; from social media videos and satellite imagery to online records, is transforming how lawyers, academics, journalists, and civil society document conflict‑related harms. But they also confront the darker side of this digital revolution: disinformation, AI‑generated fakes, evidentiary scepticism in courtrooms, and widening global inequalities in who gets to investigate who's suffering. This conversation moves from theory to practice, revealing how Queen’s Digital Investigation Lab has supported real‑world litigation and accountability efforts related to Gaza, Syria, Ukraine, and Sudan, and asks what comes next for this powerful and precarious field.
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    37 mins
  • Adoptee Rights and Access to Records in Northern Ireland (Part II)

    Adoptee Rights and Access to Records in Northern Ireland (Part II)
    Mar 26 2026
    Dr Alice Diver hosts a follow‑up LawPod conversation with Sharon, Maeve, and Brigid from Adopt NI, continuing the discussion on adoptee rights, truth recovery, and Northern Ireland’s forthcoming redress legislation. Building on Episode 1, the guests analyse how the draft bill fails to reflect the human rights framework promised in earlier reports and how lived experience has been overlooked in policymaking. They describe the gap between the Truth Recovery Report's human‑rights‑based recommendations and the bill now emerging: the exclusion of workhouse survivors; the omission of practices such as coercion, systemic separation of mothers and babies, and cross‑border adoption pathways; and the absence of a statutory right to personal records. Participants recount their frustration at being positioned as consultees only in appearance, with little genuine influence, and their exhaustion at repeatedly providing testimony that appears unread or unacted upon. The conversation highlights the lifelong impacts of forced separation, trauma, loss of identity, intergenerational effects, and the emotional labour required to obtain fragmented or redacted records. They stress the need for a victims’ commissioner, mandatory access to archives, accountability for institutions (including state, church, and medical actors), and investment in research, education, and non‑repetition measures. Despite the barriers, the group emphasises the strength of peer support through Adopt NI and the ongoing commitment to advocacy and truth-telling. There is one more episode forthcoming in this series. Further Information https://www.assemblyresearchmatters.org/2025/11/24/inquiry-mother-and-baby-institutions-magdalene-laundries-and-workhouses-and-redress-scheme-bill-a-brief-overview/ https://truthrecoverystrategy.com/reports/ Alliance for the Study of Adoption & Culture 2026 Conference — Alliance for the Study of Adoption & Culture AdoptNI Adoption UK Charity Genetic Stigma in Law and Literature: Orphanhood, Adoption, and the Right to Reunion (Palgrave, 2024) https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-46246-7
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    36 mins
  • Inside QUB Law’s Student Skills Assistants Programme

    Inside QUB Law’s Student Skills Assistants Programme
    Mar 19 2026
    Dr Nora Burns speaks with PhD students and long-serving Student Skills Assistants (SSAs) Seanin Little and Aislinn Fanning about the Student Skills Assistants Programme at Queen's University Belfast Law School, launched in November 2021 as a COVID-19 response to support undergraduates' transition to university. The programme expanded from supporting first years to include second and third-year students. Over 20 postgraduates have worked as SSAs, delivering student-led educational workshops (e.g., problem questions, critical reading, referencing, using feedback) and community-building events and trips (e.g., cinema, Crumlin Road Jail, courts), as well as one-to-one support. They discuss moving from online to in-person delivery, scheduling around timetables and cost-of-living concerns, exam-prep blog/podcast for take-home exams, teamwork and time management alongside PhDs, collaboration with student societies (Women in Law and Walkie Talkie Girlies/Project Pink), supporting diverse students, and tips emphasising listening to students, wellbeing, and strong mentorship. This episode was recorded summer 2025. The Skills Assistant Programme was managed by Dr Norah Burns until summer 2025.
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    33 mins
  • Don’t Look Down: Dr Evelyn Collins CBE on Equality, Leadership and Careers in Law

    Don’t Look Down: Dr Evelyn Collins CBE on Equality, Leadership and Careers in Law
    Mar 9 2026
    In this International Women's Day special, LLM student Sofia Debernardi speaks with Dr Evelyn Collins CBE, former Chief Executive of the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland and Honorary Professor at Queen's University Belfast. Across a remarkable career spanning more than 30 years, Dr Collins has been a central figure in shaping equality law, mainstreaming duties, and policy across Northern Ireland, the UK, and Europe. In conversation with Sofia, she reflects on:
    • her early ambition to become Northern Ireland’s first female judge;
    • studying criminology in Toronto and discovering feminism;
    • her unexpected path into equality law;
    • leading the newly merged Equality Commission for NI;
    • influencing European policy, including work on sexual harassment, positive action, and equality bodies;
    • her role in shaping Section 75, the Good Friday Agreement, and Article 2 of the Windsor Framework;
    • and her guidance for young people pursuing socially impactful careers in law today.

    This episode offers an inspiring insight into how one woman’s commitment to justice and opportunity helped transform equality legislation at home and abroad.
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    50 mins