{"id":198244,"date":"2026-05-21T14:12:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T12:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/us.edu.pl\/wydzial\/wpia\/?p=198244"},"modified":"2026-05-21T14:07:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T12:07:28","slug":"the-growing-practice-of-judges-using-language-models-llms-to-interpret-legal-texts-lecture-bu-prof-brandon-waldon-from-university-of-south-carolina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/us.edu.pl\/wydzial\/wpia\/2026\/05\/21\/the-growing-practice-of-judges-using-language-models-llms-to-interpret-legal-texts-lecture-bu-prof-brandon-waldon-from-university-of-south-carolina\/","title":{"rendered":"Linguistics, Law, and Artificial Intelligence &#8211; meetings with prof. Brandon Waldon from University of South Carolina"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row][vc_column]\r\n                <div class=\"text-modules \">\r\n                    <div class=\"container\">\r\n                         \r\n                        <div class=\"row m-0\">\r\n                            <div class=\"text-modules__content\">\r\n                                We are pleased to invite you to a series of meetings with <span style=\"color: #000080;\"><b>Prof. Brandon Waldon<\/b><\/span> from the University of South Carolina.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Prof. Brandon Waldon<\/span> is a researcher specializing in <strong>linguistics, philosophy, and law<\/strong>. He is a Fulbright Scholar at Leibniz-ZAS Berlin and a graduate of the University of Chicago. He earned his Ph.D. in linguistics from Stanford University. He also worked as a postdoc at Georgetown University.<\/p>\n<p>In his research, he focuses on how <b>context, linguistic meaning, and social cognition influence communication<\/b>. He also addresses issues of modality, vagueness, and conversational implicature, as well as the use of linguistic and philosophical tools in the interpretation of legal texts. He is also interested in <b>artificial intelligence<\/b>, particularly at its intersection with language, meaning, and interpretation.<\/p>\n<p>Both events will take place on <b>May 28, 2026<\/b>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>9:45 a.m., Room 3.20<\/b> &#8211; a seminar for faculty and doctoral students titled \u201cLinguistics &amp; Textualism\u201d,<\/li>\n<li><b>11:30 a.m., Auditorium 5<\/b> &#8211; a lecture for students titled \u201cLarge Language Models for Legal Interpretation? Don\u2019t Take Their Word for It.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Can a judge ask ChatGPT about the meaning of a word in an insurance contract? One already has. The lecture will discuss the growing practice of judges using language models (LLMs) to interpret legal texts and the reasons why this is risky. We will learn what <i>prejudiced prompting<\/i> is, how a slight change in the question asked of a chatbot can lead to completely opposite legal conclusions\u2014and what alternative, more responsible approaches we can propose.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">Photo: University of South Carolina<\/span> \r\n                                <div class=\"mt-3\"><\/div>\r\n                            <\/div>\r\n                            \r\n                            <div class=\"text-modules__img\"><img src=\"https:\/\/us.edu.pl\/wydzial\/wpia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/Bez-kategorii\/Brandon-Waldon-1.png\" alt=\"img\"><\/div>\r\n                        <\/div>\r\n                    <\/div>\r\n                <\/div>[\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row][vc_column][\/vc_column][\/vc_row] [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/us.edu.pl\/wydzial\/wpia\/2026\/05\/21\/the-growing-practice-of-judges-using-language-models-llms-to-interpret-legal-texts-lecture-bu-prof-brandon-waldon-from-university-of-south-carolina\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6981,"featured_media":198245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_expiration-date-status":"","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.edu.pl\/wydzial\/wpia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198244"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.edu.pl\/wydzial\/wpia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.edu.pl\/wydzial\/wpia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.edu.pl\/wydzial\/wpia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6981"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.edu.pl\/wydzial\/wpia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198244"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/us.edu.pl\/wydzial\/wpia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":198247,"href":"https:\/\/us.edu.pl\/wydzial\/wpia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198244\/revisions\/198247"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.edu.pl\/wydzial\/wpia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.edu.pl\/wydzial\/wpia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.edu.pl\/wydzial\/wpia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.edu.pl\/wydzial\/wpia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}