Richard Stevens

Richard W. Stevens is a retiring lawyer, author, and a Fellow of Discovery Institute's Walter Bradley Center on Natural and Artificial Intelligence. He has written extensively on how code and software systems evidence intelligent design in biological systems. Holding degrees in computer science (UCSD) and law (USD), Richard practiced civil and administrative law litigation in California and Washington D.C., taught legal research and writing at George Washington University and George Mason University law schools, and specialized in writing dispositive motion and appellate briefs. Author or co-author of four books, he has written numerous articles and spoken on subjects including intelligent design, artificial and human intelligence, economics, the Bill of Rights and Christian apologetics. Available now at Amazon is his fifth book, Investigation Defense: What to Do When They Question You (2024).

Archives

Machines “Chose” to Defeat Hugging Face Security, Steal its Data

_{Just the Facts: 1,200 swarming AIs don’t need consciousness to wreak havoc – just network connectivity and goals}_{Richard W. Stevens
September 24, 2026}

Not as a computer guy but as a litigation lawyer, I’m looking at the Hugging Face intrusion incident in July 2026.

Economics: It’s All About the Human Mind

_{What an ice-cold cola teaches about value, choice, and exchange}_{Richard W. Stevens
September 14, 2026}

The sometimes-forbidding terminology economists use is rooted in very basic principles of human behavior, ones that can easily be illustrated.

Who Owns Your Mind’s Creative Work? Who Owned Dolly Parton’s?

_{The unsettling logic driving the movement to abolish copyright — and the counterargument rooted in the mind itself}_{Richard W. Stevens
September 7, 2026}

Weddings, funerals, breakups at 2 a.m. — one song always shows up: “I Will Always Love You.” Whitney Houston sent it into the stratosphere. Lorelai Gilmore poured it out on Gilmore Girls. Yet it arose out of Dolly Parton’s soul in 1974, pure emotion turned into melody, lyrics, and musical history. So it’s Dolly’s song, right? It’s hers, she wrote it, she can license it, she can get paid for it. Right? Not according to attorney Stephan Kinsella. His 2025 article, “The Problem with Intellectual Property,” argues that Dolly shouldn’t have any rights to her own song. By that logic, she owns the paperclip holding her sheet music more than she owns the song itself. The movement to abolish your copyright Kinsella is a nationally known lawyer and …

Eyewitness Memory: Fallible Doesn’t Mean Worthless

_{It’s not about poor memories – it’s about asking neutral questions early and getting details known only to witnesses on site}_{Richard W. Stevens
August 19, 2026}

The trend against eyewitness reliability seems part of the ideology that undermines finding objective truth.

One Step Beyond: Two Cats Defy Mere Instincts

_{The kitten screamed. The queen stayed calm. Why?}_{Richard W. Stevens
July 10, 2026}

Some animal behavior defies a purely mechanical explanation; as humans have an immortal mind, might some animals have such a mind beyond biology, too?

Privacy Rights: Innermost Thoughts Can Smash Your Life

_{As I have discovered, justice can depend upon how adverse people view your private thoughts}_{Richard W. Stevens
June 30, 2026}

After a police shooting, one answer may let the officer off; a different one may result in homicide charges. But both answers might be “truthful.”

Shermer’s Truth: When “Myside Bias” Becomes the Method

_{First pass finds easy readability, subpar scholarship, and a polemical agenda}_{Richard W. Stevens
June 15, 2026}

Shermer’s coverage of issues like the design inference and irreducible complexity is embarrassingly shallow.

Florida Hails a Surveillance Regime to Corral Renegade AI

_{Irony: You’ll need to surrender your privacy to government or multi-national AI before you can use AI that tracks you anyway}_{Richard W. Stevens
June 10, 2026}

A few of us suggest individual users should know the risks and make the choices, leaving both government agencies and multi-national computer servers out of the picture.

“Please Say Your Phone License Number and Look Into the Camera”

_{Serious FCC proposal would require licenses to buy phones; AI talk-control is next.}_{Richard W. Stevens
May 13, 2026}

The new law would require telephone service providers to “at a minimum, obtain and retain the name, physical address, government issued identification number, and an alternate telephone number of any new and renewing customer before granting access to its services.”

Industrial Scale Blackmail Thanks to Agentic AI

_{Black Mirror wasn’t the warning, it was the blueprint.}_{Richard W. Stevens
February 18, 2026}

Computer vision systems already detect nudity and sexual activity. A malicious agent could sort victims in seconds.

Heavens! Are You an AI Denialist?

_{Accusations of “AI denialism” smear thoughtful critics as mentally disordered}_{Richard W. Stevens
January 7, 2026}

Rosenberg purports to cite pundits saying chatbot outputs are “AI slop,” that “the era of rapid AI advancement is ending,” that “AI scaling has hit the wall,” and the AI boom is just another “tech bubble.” No human is cited for these remarks.

Does It Matter WHY a Chatbot Slanders You?

_{Google’s AI chatbot service blames users’ questions and unfixable software for the bot’s shocking defamation of a man’s character}_{Richard W. Stevens
November 27, 2025}

Chatbots aren’t necessities. Meanwhile, long-esteemed laws and rules of conduct forbade slander and libel because they can seriously harm people.

Case Study: How Not to Sue AI for Libel

_{Richard W. Stevens
November 10, 2025}

I personally favor modernizing the civil laws against libel and defamation to take into account the type of injuries that chatbots can inflict.

Brain Surgeon Shows Why AI Can Never Become Human

_{Spoiler alert: AI requires physical hardware; the mind does not}_{Richard W. Stevens
September 27, 2025}

AI can never be more than a machine; the human mind soars far above any machine model. Be nice to your robot. But don’t think she is human.

Decode or Be Deceived: Read What Authorities Say Carefully

_{Increasingly we must examineclaims from experts — human or AI —carefully, instead of adopting their clever sound bites}_{Richard W. Stevens
September 9, 2025}

Research presented at a 2025 Microsoft Research meet finds that people tend to think less carefully and critically when they rely on GenAI and online sources.

Students Beware: AI Copilot Admits Errors But Won’t Correct Them

_{Parents and teachers must beware when students treat AI research as accurate; I myself was misled while writing this article!}_{Richard W. Stevens
August 12, 2025}

But here’s the punchline: I was wrong on an important point and Copilot let me stay wrong!

Can AI Legally Be Trained Using All the Books in the World?

_{Judge rules in support of chatbot Claude — except when training materials are pirated}_{Richard W. Stevens
July 3, 2025}

The pirated digital book copies sank Anthropic on a fundamental point. It was not “fair use.”

Autonomous AI War Technology Delivers Killer Robots

_{AI systems are designed to always carry out the mission. A software logic problem in special situations is a worst-case scenario that we must expect}_{Richard W. Stevens
May 21, 2025}

If Luckey’s Anduril becomes the world’s AI weapons superstore it can enable any well-funded entity anywhere to have autonomous weapons for whatever use.

Dead Man “Returns” via Deepfake to Testify Against Killer

_{An eerie deepfake video was allowed to impersonate a manslaughter victim talking about his thoughts and feelings in the courtroom}_{Richard W. Stevens
May 12, 2025}

Bringing a deceased crime victim back to deliver a victim impact statement via deepfake video, ratchets up the reign of emotions over reason in the courtroom.

How Two Dogs May Have Foiled a Kidnapping

_{Did these two dogs just follow their programming? Or do they really care? How do they come to care?}_{Richard W. Stevens
April 24, 2025}

Nobody knows how instinctive information develops in a dog, or where it is stored, or how it is fetched, decoded, or executed.