Han Dynasty skepticism

The Lunheng (Balanced Discourses) by Wang Chong (Wang Ch’ung) (25—100 C.E.) features a robust criticism in Lun si (Discussion Concerning Death) of contemporary belief in ghosts, using three arguments :

2)  population - if people become ghosts when they die, there should be more ghost sightings than living people, as the number of people who have lived in the past and died is far greater than the number of people now living. However,  'ghost' sightings are uncommon.  

3) efficacy - when someone is harmed, that person will seek a magistrate and bring a case against the party who harmed them. If  people become ghosts when they die and can interact with living humans, every ghostly murder victim would be visiting the magistrate, identifying the killer and the means of murder, and leading the magistrate  to the body and evidence. The visits are never witnessed.

1) embodiment - death  results from the body losing the animating qi (vital essence). Once the qi is separated from the body, the body decays. If the qi is still existent, how can it manifest in the form of a physical shape? It is not a body, it is qi. When we see a ghost, we see a body. If people have died, they no longer have a body, so where could they get another one? They cannot take over another living body, which already has its own qi. The belief that people become ghosts on their death is nonsensical.  

AI Magic

'The reanimation of pseudoscience in machine learning and its ethical repercussions' by Mel Andrews, Andrew Smart and Abeba Birhane in (2024) 5(9101027) Cell comments 

 Machine learning has a pseudoscience problem. An abundance of ethical issues arising from the use of machine learning (ML)-based technologies—by now, well documented—is inextricably entwined with the systematic epistemic misuse of these tools. We take a recent resurgence of deep learning-assisted physiognomic research as a case study in the relationship between ML-based pseudoscience and attendant social harms—the standard purview of “AI ethics.” In practice, the epistemic and ethical dimensions of ML misuse often arise from shared underlying reasons and are resolvable by the same pathways. Recent use of ML toward the ends of predicting protected attributes from photographs highlights the need for philosophical, historical, and domain-specific perspectives of particular sciences in the prevention and remediation of misused ML. 

The present perspective outlines how epistemically baseless and ethically pernicious paradigms are recycled back into the scientific literature via machine learning (ML) and explores connections between these two dimensions of failure. We hold up the renewed emergence of physiognomic methods, facilitated by ML, as a case study in the harmful repercussions of ML-laundered junk science. A summary and analysis of several such studies is delivered, with attention to the means by which unsound research lends itself to social harms. We explore some of the many factors contributing to poor practice in applied ML. In conclusion, we offer resources for research best practices to developers and practitioners. 

The fields of AI/machine learning (ML) ethics and responsible AI have documented an abundance of social harms enabled by the methods of ML, both actual and potential. Although the topic is comparatively more obscure, critics have also sought to draw attention to the epistemic failings of ML-based systems: failures of functionality and scientific legitimacy.  The connection between the ethicality and epistemic soundness of deployed ML, however, has received scant attention. 

We urge that if the field of AI ethics is to be efficacious in preventing and remediating the social harms flowing from deployed ML systems, it must first grapple with discrepancies between the presumed epistemic operation of these tools and their in-practice ability to achieve those aims. While such an observation is not novel (see Raji et al.), we build on prior work, both in offering an analysis of the issue from a philosophical vantage point and in venturing into the intricacies of in-practice epistemic and ethical misuses of ML systems. We argue that philosophical, historical, and scientific perspectives are necessary in confronting these issues and that ethical and epistemic issues cannot, and should not, be confronted independently. 

A recent surge of deep learning-based studies have claimed the ability to predict unobservable latent character traits, including homosexuality, political ideology, and criminality, from photographs of human faces or other records of outward appearance, including Alam et al., Chandraprabha et al., Hashemi and Hall, Kabir et al., Kachur et al., Kosinski et al.,  Mindoro et al.,  Parde et al.,  Peterson et al.,Mujeeb Rahman and Subashini,  Reece and Danforth,  Su et al.,  Tsuchiya et al.,  Verma et al.,  Vrskova et al.,  and Wang and Kosinski.  In response, government and industry actors have adapted such methods into technologies deployed on the public in the form of products such as Faception,  Hirevue,  and Turnitin.  The term of art for methods endeavoring to predict character traits from human morphology is “physiognomy.” Research in the physiognomic tradition goes back centuries, and while the methods largely fell out of favor with the downfall of the Third Reich, the prospects of ML have renewed scientific interest in the subject. Much like historical forays into this domain, this new wave of physiognomy, resurrected and yet not, apparently, sufficiently rebranded, has faced harsh criticism on both ethical and epistemic grounds. 

This critical response, however, has yet to explore how the confused inferential bases of these studies are responsible for their ethically problematic nature. There are several conclusions we wish to draw from the detailed study of these examples, which we believe extrapolate to the relation between ethical and epistemic issues in deployments of ML at large. (1) No inference is theory neutral. (2) Leaving a theory or hypothesis tacit means it is not held to account for, and its conclusions are not critically evaluated before the results of such work are deployed or acted upon. (3) If a study informs a policy, intervention, or technology that will materially impact human lives—in other words, if a study is at all informative—and it misrepresents the human reality within which it is being deployed, it should be expected that harms to humans will arise. Wrong theories generate wrong interventions. Wrong interventions cause harm. (4) ML models are developed and deployed to extract complex, high-dimensional statistical patterns from large datasets. These complex patterns are typically taken to represent unobservable latent features of the systems from which their training data were drawn. The norms and procedures established for correctly inferring unobservable latent variables from correlational measures differ by scientific field and must be indexed to subject matter. (5) Meta-narratives and cycles of hype surrounding ML, we argue, play a direct role in encouraging errant usage of the tools. When ML tools are proclaimed to deliver false inferences, the outcomes are rarely ethically innocuous. This is true in general but is all the more salient for ML tools deployed in socially sensitive arenas. In bringing to light the connection between pseudoscientific methods in applied ML and the ethical harms they perpetuate, we hope to encourage greater care in the design and usage of such systems. 

Physiognomy resurrected 

“Physiognomy” is “the facility to identify, from the form and constitution of external parts of the human body, chiefly the face, exclusive of all temporary signs of emotions, the constitution of the mind and the heart.” Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, 1778

Recent years have seen an abundance of papers promulgating physiognomic methods resting on ML models.  Work of this ilk is undertaken by academic research groups, private firms, and government agencies. A number of representative instances of each claim to have trained ML classifiers to predict personality, behavioral, or identity characteristics from image, text, voice, or other biometric data. Inferred labels have included race,  sexuality,  mental illness,  criminal propensity, autism, and neuroticism. These studies have predominantly relied on deep learning neural networks (DNNs), sometimes in tandem with more simplistic regression techniques. The practice of wielding the methods of ML toward the (putative) prediction of internal mental states, dispositions, or behavioral propensities based on outwardly visible morphology has been labeled “AI pseudoscience,” “digital phrenology,” “physiognomic AI,” “AI snake oil,” “bogus AI,” and “junk science.” These technologies, however, do not only exist in the abstract—a growing number of companies now market physiognomic capabilities, including the ability to detect academic dishonesty in students and future performance in prospective employees. Remarkably, a single tool marketed to defense contractors boasts of the ability to predict “pedophilia,” “terrorism,” and “bingo playing.” 

In this section, we review the details of several representative examples of physiognomic ML. These case studies are intended to be illustrative of the kinds of reasoning, epistemic foundations, and logic behind research and applications of automated inference from images portraying human likenesses. The studies presented here are intended to be representative of the genre and not a comprehensive overview. 

Inferring sexual orientation 

Utilizing DNNs,  Wang and Kosinski extract features from images of human faces, which they then regress in a supervised learning task against self-reported sexual orientation labels. The classifier achieved 81% and 71% accuracy scores on sexual orientation for male and female subjects, respectively. These findings represent a higher classification accuracy than experimentally determined human judgment. The researchers scraped their data from social media profiles, claiming that training their classifiers on “self-taken, easily accessible digital facial images increases the ecological validity of our results.”  Wang and Kosinski report that the “findings advance our understanding of the origins of sexual orientation.”  The authors of the study explain the ability of their models to discriminate sexual orientation with the claim that “the faces of gay men and lesbians tend to be gender atypical.”  The validation of this hypothesis depended on the training of an additional DNN for gender discrimination. This classifier assigned a likelihood to each face image of being female. The researchers then interpreted this likelihood as a measure of facial femininity, assessing the faces of homosexual-tagged individuals against an average femininity score for heterosexual individuals. The researchers claimed that their results revealed that “the faces of gay men were more feminine and the faces of lesbians were more masculine than those of their respective heterosexual counterparts.”  “The high accuracy of the classifier,” Wang and Kosinski report, “confirmed that much of the information about sexual orientation is retained in fixed facial features.”  The contention of the researchers is that high classification accuracy of sexual orientation from facial features, alongside the evidence they supply for the gender-atypicality of facial morphology, lends support for a particular theory of the genesis of same-sex attraction. The proposed hypothesis is the prenatal hormone theory (PHT) of homosexuality, which proposes that same-sex attraction is a developmental response to atypical testosterone exposure in fetal development. Wang and Kosinski’s results, they claim in their preprint, “provide strong support for the PHT, which argues that same-gender sexual orientation stems from the underexposure of male fetuses and overexposure of female fetuses to prenatal androgens responsible for the sexual differentiation of faces, preferences, and behavior.” 

Personality psychology 

Kachur et al. write that “morphological and social cues in a human face provide signals of human personality and behaviour.” Their stated hypothesis is that a “photograph contains cues about personality that can be extracted using machine learning.” The authors further claim to have “circumvented the reliability limitations of human raters by developing a neural network and training it on a large dataset labelled with self-reported Big Five traits.” Here, deep learning is invoked as a means to obtain objectivity beyond human judgment; however, the training dataset was self-labeled by human raters. The predictive accuracy is interpreted as prima facie evidence for their hypothesis that structural features of human faces contain information of human personality and behavior, and the authors state that their “study presents new evidence confirming that human personality is related to individual facial appearance.” 

In this study, participants self-reported personality characteristics by completing an online questionnaire and then uploaded several photographs, which the researchers then used to construct their training and test datasets. In this example, as in Wang and Kosinski, researchers used the accuracy of their ML model as confirmatory evidence of a joint causal basis for both facial morphology and self-reported personality. Kachur et al. report “several theoretical reasons to expect associations between facial images and personality” including that “genetic background contributes to both face and personality.” Kachur et al. described their results as being indicative of “a potential biological basis” to the discovered association between face images and self-reported personality characteristics. 

“Abnormality” classification 

A recent study constructed a “normal” and “abnormal” human facial expression dataset for the purpose of automatically detecting such abnormal traits as drug addiction, autism, and criminality from facial images. The authors argued that “facial expression reflects our mental activities and provides useful information on human behaviors.” Kabir et al. “developed a combined method of Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) to classify human abnormalities.” “This approach,” they contend “analyzes the human face and finds the abnormalities, such as Drug addiction, Autism, Criminalism [sic].” 

The researchers utilized images “gathered from the web using the web gathering technique,” although the details of this technique were not further elucidated. It is not made clear within the scope of the manuscript on what basis images were classified as “normal,” “drug addicted,” “autistic,” or “criminal.” The researchers reported a validation accuracy of 89.5% on the four categories. The provenance of the labels is left undisclosed in this study, as are the validation criteria. 

In a similar vein, Vrskova et al. claim to be able to diagnose “abnormal” human activities such as “begging,” “drunkenness,” “robbery,” and “terrorism” from video footage. 

Lie detection 

Automated deception detection has long been of interest to law enforcement, judicial systems, academic institutions, corporations, and governments. A recent study by Tsuchiya et al. utilized facial analysis and ML toward the putative automatic detection of deception for remote job-interview scenarios. The stated purpose of this research was to create an ML-based tool to detect when someone on video call might be lying. Participants in this study were asked to knowingly generate false descriptions of images while being recorded via video and biometric sensors. The researchers then used these data to train an ML model to predict deception-based facial or head movements, pulse rate, or eye movements. The researchers obtained a high accuracy rate using their classifier on the four participants used in the study. As in the other studies reviewed here, the predictive accuracy of the model was taken to substantiate the hypothesis that particular facial features or movements are evidence of unobservable character or behavioral traits—in this instance, deception. 

Criminality detection 

A study by Wu and Zhang purported to “empirically establish the validity of automated face-induced inference on criminality.” The authors trained four canonical ML models on a dataset of ID photographs of Chinese citizens to predict the label of criminality. Wu and Zhang stated that their models detect “criminality based solely on still face images, which is free of any biases of subjective judgments of human observers.”33 The convolutional neural network achieved an accuracy rate of 89.51% at picking out subjects who had been arrested for a crime. Hashemi and Hall claim to have also developed a deep learning-based criminality detector.

Knutson, Mayan Calendar and Postal Court

In Knutson (Re), 2018 ABQB 858 Thomas J states 

 [1] James Kenneth Knutson [Knutson] has since 2016 employed a broad spectrum of abusive pseudolegal strategies in his attempts to evade enforcement of his credit card and mortgage debts. His litigation arguments are “Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Arguments” or “OPCA”, a class of spurious “pseudolaw” concepts which are sold to abusive litigants by conman “gurus” who promise extraordinary but false benefits: Meads v Meads, 2012 ABQB 571, 543 AR 215. Gurus’ illusionary promises include free money, debt elimination, “get out of jail free cards”, immunity from income tax, and “travelling” - unlimited motor vehicle use. OPCA ideas sound like law and use legal terminology and references, but are universally rejected by Canadian courts. 

[2] All OPCA constitute an abuse of court processes. The employing of OPCA strategies is a basis on which a court may impose court access restrictions through what is sometimes called a “vexatious litigant order”: Meads v Meads; R v Fearn, 2014 ABQB 233 at para 49, 586 AR 182; Chutskoff v Bonora, 2014 ABQB 389 at para 92, 590 AR 288, aff’d 2014 ABCA 444, 588 AR 303. Some OPCA ideas are so notoriously false that simply employing these concepts creates a presumption that a litigant appears in court for an abusive, ulterior motive: Fiander v Mills, 2015 NLCA 31, 368 Nfld & PEIR 80; Rothweiler v Payette, 2018 ABQB 288. 

[3] Knutson’s litigation history in the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench amply demonstrates that he persistently employs these false concepts. He has continued with his abusive, futile schemes, despite failing on every occasion where he has attempted to impose pseudolaw on the Courts and opposing parties. ... 

[10]. ... 2. A document dated September 16, 2016 where Knutson demands Brian J. Porter, president of the Bank, do various things including validate the debt, provide a signed contract, and if these demands are not satisfied in seven days that means the debt never existed or has been paid, and that damages and fee schedule charges are due. This document is an exact duplicate of a “Conditional Acceptance” document sold by the UK “Get Out Of Debt Free” OPCA website (see Bank of Montreal v Rogozinsky, 2014 ABQB 771, 603 AR 261, paras 55-73, Appendix “A”), which is the first document in a Three/Five Letters pseudolaw process which is intended to eliminate debts by foisting obligations on lenders. This document is marked by ink fingerprints in the lower right corner of each page, with the annotation “Seal” and “Copy-claim”. Also attached is a second document from the Get Out Of Debt Free website, titled “Common Law Copyright Notice” (reproduced in Bank of Montreal v Rogozinsky, Appendix “E”), which purports to claim intellectual property interests over Knutson’s name, biometric data, DNA, urine, feces, and other bodily fluids. Any breach of this claimed interest results in a $1 million penalty. This document also sports the ink fingerprint markings, and on its front page a Canadian postage stamp, signed across “by: James-Kenneth: Knutson”. 

3. A further document to Brian J. Porter, dated September 29, 2016, reproduced in Appendix “A”, which in brief says that two attached documents titled “Promissory Note” pay any outstanding debts. The September 29, 2016 letter states that if the “Promissory Notes” are not returned, or if they are returned “... without a legitimate written explanation ...” [emphasis in original], then that means “... my account balance is now zero for both accounts.” [emphasis of original]. The same fingerprint and postage stamp ornaments are present as the previous documents. ... 

5. Last is a letter dated January 1, 2017, reproduced as Appendix “C”, where “Sovereign ©James of the family: Knutson, Authorized Agent and Representative for JAMES KNUTSON™” declares that he is “an endless creditor” thanks to “the birth certificate bond”, “money no longer exists”, and that he has been denied a “Common Law court de jure”. This trial can only proceed if he receives $10 million in gold or silver “paid up front”, he is recognized as an “Ambassador of God”, and “You must verity the [BAR CULT] fiction-code: NO LAW OR FACT SHALL BE TRIED IN COURT.” This document attaches a 20 page “Notice of Understanding and Intent and Claim of Right” [NOUICR], which is a document commonly used by persons in the Freeman-on-the-Land movement which purportedly eliminates state authority and fetters the operation of the Court. The document states: ... Free-men-on-the-land do not have earthly masters. I am a Free-man-on-the-land and I do not have a master on planet Earth other than GOD and only from GOD ... This document also includes a “FEE SCHEDULE”, which allegedly sets fines to government actors, for example: FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS ($5000.00) PER HOUR or portion thereof if I am held, handcuffed, transported, incarcerated or subjected to any adjudication process without my express written and notarized consent ... This particular NOUICR is largely identical to a NOUICR filed by Alfred Potvin in Royal Bank of Canada v Potvin, Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench Docket #1701 01667 and Potvin v Royal Bank of Canada, Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench Docket #1701 13997: Potvin (Re), 2018 ABQB 652. 

[17] ... In the Affidavit filed by Knutson on March 7, 2017, Knutson indicates “I am a Common Law man , of inherent jurisdiction.”, and attaches as proof his NOUICR and Registration of Live Birth. Knutson continues to say he has sent this lender another set of Get Out Of Debt Free letters, which are attached as exhibits. Knutson claims that proves no debt exists. He also says Charter, s 32 means the law of Canada does not apply to him: “I have never, nor am I now acting as agent of the government.” 

[18] Both the Knutson and MCAP Affidavits include a bizarre, practically indecipherable document, the first page of which is reproduced as Appendix “D”. The content and text of the first page of this document is representative of its entire nine pages. As best I can evaluate this item, I conclude this is a “judgment” of a purported US court, the “:FEDERAL-POSTAL-COURT”, issued on November 26, 2016 by “:FEDERAL-POSTAL-JUDGE: David-Wynn: Miller. The “judgment” is followed by a “:STUDY-GUIDE” which seems to indicate a strange kind of grammar. For example: ~4 = PRONOUNS = FOR THE SINGLE-ONE-WORD; FOR AN ADJUCTIVE-PRONOUN-OPINION OF THE FACT CHANGES WITH THE FACT INTO THE PRONOUN; FOR AN ADVERB-CONNECTS TO THE PRONOUN BEFORE AND ADVERB. 

[19] The remaining ten pages are the Knutson MCAP mortgage, but that document has been annotated. Each page is marked in thick felt marker “:EVIDENCE:” and stamped with a legend: :Syntax-word-key-meaning: 1=Adverb 8=Past-time 2=Verb 9=Future-time 3=Adjective 0=Conjunction 4=Pronoun NC=No-Contract and is sometimes annotated with other text, such as “:STYLES-Boxing=:OMIT-VOID-CONTENT-FRAUD-SYNTAX-GRAMMER”. All words are then individually annotated with a hand-written number, which appears to correspond to the stamped legend. 

[20] Though my analysis of the meaning of this peculiar item is hampered by its perplexing nature, I conclude the function of the “:FEDERAL-POSTAL-COURT” decision and attached annotated mortgage document is that the mortgage contract is being proofread using an abnormal grammar code. The failure of MCAP to format its documents according to this outlandish linguistic system allegedly means the contract is void and fraudulent. 

[21] In support of that interpretation, I note the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench is not the first (legitimate) court to receive a document from the “:FEDERAL-POSTAL-COURT”. In Gilly v Ocwen, 2016 WL 868167 (Conn Dist Ct), US District Court Judge Meyer reports the local court had received dozens of purported “Certified Copy of Final Judgment, Translation of Final Default Judgements” from the “:FEDERAL-POSTAL-COURT”. 

[22] Judge Meyer’s subsequent encounter with the “judge” behind this so-called Court is worth reproducing in full: Because of doubts about the validity of the “Federal Postal Court,” I entered an order to show cause for a hearing to learn more about the judgment and the “Federal Postal Court.” Notice of the hearing was transmitted to plaintiff, but she did not communicate with the Court. Two individuals ended up participating in the hearing by telephone from an Arizona telephone number. They identified themselves as David Wynn Miller, who described himself as a judge of the “Federal Postal Court,” and Leighton Ward, who described himself as clerk of the “Federal Postal Court.” These two names appear on the registration documents filed with the Court. Miller told me that Benjamin Franklin opened the “Federal Postal Court” on July 4, 1775. But the court was soon closed in 1776 with the onset of the Revolutionary War. It remained closed for more than two centuries. Then, according to Miller, he and a colleague reopened the court for operation on December 21, 2012 (a day that is otherwise well known as the predicted end of the world according to the Mayan Calendar). Miller explained to me that the “Federal Postal Court” operates on the basis of a sophisticated mathematical understanding of language that proves that certain mortgage documents are fraudulent. According to Miller, the “Federal Postal Court” has been recognized by the United Nations. The “Federal Postal Court” does not have a courthouse or other fixed location; instead, it has transitory jurisdiction with a presence wherever the federal postal eagle symbol may be. A YouTube search discloses numerous videos of Miller and others explaining the operation of the “Federal Postal Court.” A Westlaw search does not disclose any valid judgments or other proceedings involving the “Federal Postal Court.” A Westlaw search for the name of “David Wynn Miller” otherwise reflects a lengthy history of frivolous filings that use the same impenetrable language that appears in the filings in this case. See, e.g., United States v. Pflum, 2013 WL 4482706 (D. Kan. 2013) (collecting dozens of cases and noting that several district courts have imposed pre-filing screening orders to prevent Miller from filing suits in these courts without prior leave of the court). 

[23] Judge Meyer refused to file the purported “:FEDERAL-POSTAL-COURT” default judgment, and instead concluded: ... there is no basis to conclude that the purported judgment of the “Federal Postal Court” arises from any valid legal authority at all. So far as I can tell, the “Federal Postal Court” is a sham and no more than a product of fertile imagination. ... I totally agree with this statement. 

[24] Commonwealth authorities have also previously rejected David Wynn Miller and his concepts as an authentic legal authority, for example: National Leasing v Top West Venture, 2001 BCSC 111; CIBC v Chesney, 2001 BCSC 625; Borkovic v Laurentian Bank of Canada, 2001 BCSC 337; R v McMordie, 2001 BCCA 412, 155 BCAC 21; Wollongong City Council v Falamaki, [2010] NSWLEC 66; Wollongong City Council v Falamaki, [2009] FMCA 1204; APD Property Developments Ltd v Papakura District Council, [2009] NZHC 1677. 

[25] The “:FEDERAL-POSTAL-COURT” decision I have reviewed and “Judge” Miller’s statements to Judge Meyer only hint at scope of Miller’s bizarre claims. For example, Wollongong City Council v Falamaki, [2010] NSWLEC 66 reports representation by “plenipotentiary judge David-Wynn Miller”, who shared “a little secret” with the Court: “Every word that starts in the English language with a vowel, a, e, i, o and u and followed by two consonants is a word that means no contract.” That insight is “astonishing”, or, in “Millerese”, “no contract”. 

[26] Not surprisingly, the “:FEDERAL-POSTAL-COURT” decision purchased by Knutson from Miller was of no legal effect. On March 6, 2017 Gill J dismissed Knutson’s appeal and ordered that Knutson must vacate the mortgaged property by March 20, 2017. ... 

[46] Knutson’s litigation to date exhibits a broad range of OPCA concepts, as well as other indicia of abusive litigation. 

A. OPCA Concepts and Strategies 

[47] I have reproduced and described Knutson’s OPCA materials in some detail to provide illustrations of the false concepts he has employed to this point. What follows is an incomplete review of his OPCA strategies, highlighting some of the most egregious misconduct. 

1. “Strawman” Theory 

[48] First, Knutson’s materials indicates he advocates “Strawman” Theory, which was recently summarized by Rooke ACJ in Potvin (Re), 2018 ABQB 652 at paras 83-85: “Strawman” Theory claims an individual has two parts, a physical human being component, and an immaterial but legal double. Pseudolaw gurus use many names to identify the latter, but I will refer to this part by one of its more common names: the “Strawman”. The way one tells these two aspects apart is by the letter case of their name. “Alfred Gerald Potvin” is the human half, while “ALFRED GERALD POTVIN” is the “Strawman”. “Strawman” Theory claims that human beings are born without a “Strawman”, but that nefarious government actors trick parents into obtaining a birth certificate, and that attaches the “Strawman” to the infant by a contract. In this scheme governments have no authority over humans, but instead must chain their authority through to the human via the “Strawman” and its secret contract. “Strawman” Theory also often claims that “Strawman” and birth documentation is associated with a bank account or some other form of wealth, and with special techniques that money can be obtained by “A4V” ... See also Potvin (Re), 2018 ABQB 652 at paras 110-120; Meads v Meads, at paras 417-446; Pomerleau v Canada (Revenue Agency), 2017 ABQB 123 at paras 67-88, [2017] DTC 5024; d’Abadie v Her Majesty the Queen, 2018 ABQB 298 at paras 57-70; Rothweiler v Payette, 2018 ABQB 134 at paras 10-17, confirmed 2018 ABQB 399 at paras 25-33. 

[49] The “Strawman” scheme is so notoriously bad (“fanciful”, “no rational support”, and “no basis in the law”) that, in Fiander v Mills, at paras 20-21, 40, the Newfoundland Court of Appeal concluded that anyone who even uses the “Strawman” in court is presumed to act in bad faith, and for a “vexatious and abusive” ulterior purpose. A court that encounters the “Strawman” may act pre-emptively to terminate or restrict litigation abuse based on this notoriously false idea. This rule from Fiander v Mills has been subsequently adopted in many Alberta cases, including Re Boisjoli; Gauthier v Starr; Alberta v Greter, 2016 ABQB 293; Pomerleau v Canada (Revenue Agency); Re Gauthier, Rothweiler v Payette, 2018 ABQB 134, litigant declared vexatious 2018 ABQB 288, decision confirmed 2018 ABQB 399; d’Abadie v Her Majesty the Queen, 2018 ABQB 298, litigant declared vexatious 2018 ABQB 438; Toronto-Dominion Bank v Leadbetter, 2018 ABQB 472, litigant declared vexatious 2018 ABQB 611; Alberta Treasury Branches v Hawrysh, 2018 ABQB 475, litigant declared vexatious 2018 ABQB 618; Potvin (Re), 2018 ABQB 652, litigant declared vexatious 2018 ABQB 834. 

[50] Knutson obviously subscribes to “Strawman” Theories. He self identifies the two halves of himself by the usual language. For example, in the document reproduced in Appendix “C”, he is “James-Kenneth: Knutson”, rather than “JAMES KNUTSON™”, which “James” says is the real party to the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench debt collection action. 

[51] In Court he refused to identify himself as James Knutson, instead, he is “James of the Family Knutson”. His NOUICR also makes these distinctions. 

[52] The Affidavit reproduced in Appendix “E” further illustrates Knutson’s spurious belief in the “Strawman”: I James, a minister of GOD, am making a special limited appearance on behalf of the defendant [JAMES KNUTSON]. 

[53] He then indicates he believes the letter case of a name has legal significance: I know the US Printing Style Manual, which explains how to identify a CORPORATION, dictates the use of capital letters. Knutson continues to indicate he identifies JAMES KNUTSON as some kind of trust. He, the physical man, is its beneficiary. 

[54] As was reviewed in Potvin (Re), 2018 ABQB 652, OPCA theories put special significance on birth documentation, often associating it with great value. Knutson makes that claim in the August 1, 2017 Affidavit: I know that man's laws are to make money for the Corporation of Canada and to pay back the Interest on the money you the 'de facto government' have borrowed in fraud on my behalf from the I.M.F. in the form of my birth bond #, on my Birth Certificate. 

[55] This related claim that birth documentation has some extraordinary legal significance was also identified in Fiander v Mills, at paras 21, 37-40, as a separate basis for a court to presume that a litigant conducts themselves in bad faith and with abusive and ulterior objectives, see also d’Abadie v Her Majesty the Queen, 2018 ABQB 298 at paras 68-70; Potvin (Re), 2018 ABQB 652 at paras 91-92. 

2. The Three/Five Letters 

[56] Knutson has employed template documents from the UK OPCA website Get Out Of Debt Free in the Bank of Nova Scotia and MCAP actions. These are a Three/Five Letters process: Bank of Montreal v Rogozinsky, at paras 55-73; Rothweiler v Payette, 2018 ABQB 288 at paras 6-21. Potvin (Re), 2018 ABQB 652 at para 68 provides a useful overview of this concept: ... Briefly, a Three/Five Letter process uses a series of documents that are sent to a target one after another. Each says that if the target does not respond, or does not respond in an adequate manner, then certain results automatically occur. These “foisted unilateral agreements” ... are all based on a commonplace pseudolaw fallacy, that in contract silence means agreement or consent. [Citation omitted.] In Knutson’s case, he purports to have eliminated his debts in this manner. 

[57] What is particularly problematic is that the exact documents that Knutson used were reproduced in full and rejected in the Bank of Montreal v Rogozinsky decision issued by this Court on December 16, 2014, long before Knutson began sending his creditors these documents in 2016. I draw a strong negative inference from Knutson’s using Get Out Of Debt Free materials after this Court issued an explicit finding that these materials were not merely worthless, but abusive. 

[58] Further, Associate Chief Justice Rooke in Rothweiler v Payette, 2018 ABQB 288 at para 6-21 concluded that the Three/Five Letters scheme has been rejected in Canadian courts on so many occasions that, like “Strawman” Theory, as a principle of law, whenever a person uses a Three/Five Letters process that action creates the presumption that OPCA litigant is engaged in a vexatious and abusive argument, and does so for an improper and ulterior purpose. 

[59] I conclude this rule applies to Knutson as well. 

3. Fee Schedules, Copyright in a Personal Name, and Other Threats 

[60] As previously indicated, Knutson’s NOUICR includes a “fee schedule”, which purports to unilaterally set penalties or fines for certain activities which are lawful acts, or duties, of government actors. This is yet another category of foisted unilateral agreement. 

[61] OPCA fee schedules are a form of intimidation: Meads v Meads, at para 527; Fearn v Canada Customs, at para 199; Bank of Montreal v Rogozinsky, at para 78; Gidda v Hirsch, 2014 BCSC 1286 at para 84; R v Sands, 2013 SKQB 115 at para 18, 416 Sask R 279; R v Boxrud, 2014 SKQB 221 at para 46, 450 Sask R 147; Re Boisjoli, at paras 58-69; Allen Boisjoli Holdings v Papadoptu, 2016 FC 1260; Pomerleau v Canada Revenue Agency, at para 135; Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce v McDougald, 2017 ABQB 124 at para 28, 276 ACWS (3d) 847; Gauthier v Starr, 2016 ABQB 213 at para 39, 86 CPC (7th) 348; Re Gauthier, at paras 65-66; Potvin (Re), 2018 ABQB 652 at paras 79-80. In Potvin (Re), 2018 ABQB 652 at para 80, Rooke ACJ explains: In law (and simple common sense) a person is presumed to intend the natural consequences of their acts ... Intimidation is the natural consequence of Mr. Potvin’s illegal and unreasonable fee schedule demands. I therefore presume Mr. Potvin intended exactly that by using these strategies and issuing bills and a counterclaim on that basis. [Citation omitted.] 

[62] I adopt this reasoning, which applies equally to Knutson. 

[63] The Get Out Of Debt Free claim by Knutson that anyone who infringes on his purported intellectual property rights is another attempt at illegal intimidation. There is no legal basis for his claim to have “common law copyright” in his name (Meads v Meads, at para 504), and, generally, this concept “... has an overwhelmingly juvenile character.” (Meads v Meads, at para 502). I conclude that threats of this kind are another example of illegitimate OPCA-based intimidation. 

[64] Knutson also threatens in his August 1, 2017 Affidavit that unless MCAP accedes to his false OPCA-based demands for a free house and nearly a million dollars he will initiate criminal proceedings through the Criminal Code, ss 504, 507.1 private information process. 

[65] All these OPCA intimidation activities are a potential basis for court access restrictions. 

4. Fractional Reserve Banking Theories and Promissory Notes are as Good as Cash 

[66] Knutson also advances two often intertwined but legally false claims that purport to eliminate debts and provide free money. First, he claims there is no such thing as real money (January 1, 2017 Affidavit, Appendix “C”): l know that I am an endless creditor and NEVER a debtor from the birth certificate bond, which I claim fiduciary gent of. I know the corporation known as CANADA is in a 70 year bankruptcy cycle; money no longer exists, since the seizure of gold and there is only charge and discharge of credit. I know banknotes are debt instruments; having people pay debt with debt is enslavement! And I will not participate. 

[67] This and other related claims concerning the operation of banks relate to a conspiracy theory that fractional reserve banking means that mortgages and other debts are a fraud. This concept has been thoroughly examined and rejected in many Canadian decisions, including Dempsey v Envision Credit Union, 2006 BCSC 750 at paras 27, 39, 151 ACWS (3d) 204; Crossroads-DMD Mortgage Investment Corporation v Gauthier, 2015 ABQB 703 at paras 68-85, 28 Alta LR (6th) 104; Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce v McDougald, at paras 51-53. 

[68] Knutson in the Bank of Nova Scotia and Capital One Bank actions argues that his providing of a promissory note which promises that he will at some point pay the outstanding debt fully discharges his obligations. This “a promise to pay is payment” promissory note is cash argument is, in any case, ridiculous, since the end result would be nothing more than “a conga line of promissory notes, each purporting to satisfy the debt of the note one step up the cue”: Re Boisjoli, at para 35. 

[69] Beyond advancing the fundamentally illogical argument that a promise is a payment, Knutson relies on a quotation of Lord Denning from Fielding & Platt Ltd v Najjar: We have repeatedly said in this court that a bill of exchange or a Promissory Note is to be treated as cash. It is to be honoured unless there is some good reason to the contrary. 

[70] Commonwealth Courts have consistently rejected Fielding & Platt Ltd v Najjar creates a principle that a debtor may discharge his or her obligations by a paper note that is not backed by actual funds: Re Boisjoli, at paras 32-34; Servus Credit Union Ltd v Parlee, 2015 ABQB 700 at paras 65-68, 7 Admin LR (6th) 700; Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce v McDougald, at paras 35-37; Dove v Legal Aid Ontario, 2018 ONSC 17 at paras 4, 8; Bank of New Zealand v Donaldson, [2016] NZHC 1225 at paras 47-52. The modern approach to payment of debt by a promissory note is set in Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission v Wilson, 2014 SLR 46, [2013] CSIH 95. The Denning rule only applies, and a bill of exchange or promissory note only extinguishes a debt, where the lender has agreed in advance to payment in that manner. 

[71] Knutson’s attempts to ‘miracle away’ his debts by worthless promissory notes or claims he never received anything of value from his lenders is a further indication that Knutson is potentially an appropriate subject for court access restrictions. 

5. The :FEDERAL-POSTAL-COURT Judgment 

[72] Knutson’s submitting to this Court and his reliance on the “:FEDERAL-POSTAL-COURT” decision of “Judge :David-Wynn: Miller” warrants special comment. This step is serious litigation misconduct. An attempt to impose a fictional court decision into an Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench process is prima facie contempt of court: Fearn v Canada Customs, at paras 201-210. 

[73] That is not the only implication of asserting alleged authority of this kind. Pseudolaw is a kind of self-destructive extremist political ideology that is reinforced in highly introspective, introverted community ‘echo chambers’: Re Gauthier, at para 92. As I observed in 1985 Sawridge Trust v Alberta (Public Trustee), 2017 ABQB 548 at paras 72-73, people who use pseudolaw are motivated by extremist political beliefs and ideologies:

Judicial and legal academic authorities uniformly identify OPCA narratives and their associated pseudolegal concepts as resting on and building from a foundation of paranoid and conspiratorial anti-government and anti-institutional political and social belief. These individuals are sometimes called ‘litigation terrorists’ for this reason. They may act for personal benefit, but they also do so with the belief they are justified and act lawfully when they injure others and disrupt court processes. Persons who advance OPCA litigation to harm others have no place in Canada’s courts. ... Their next target can be anyone who crosses their path - government officials or organizations, peace officers, lawyers, judges, business employees - and who then offends the OPCA litigant’s skewed perspectives. These individuals believe they have a right to attack others via the courts, they like the idea of doing that, and they view their litigation targets as bad actors who deserve punishment. ... 

[74] That makes “summons”, “orders”, and “judgments” of vigilante fake courts purportedly operating under pseudolegal authority a highly problematic phenomenon. Worse, orders and decisions of vigilante courts are a precursor to illegal actions, including extrajurisdictional vigilante actions against government actors. As Tilleman J observed in Fearn v Canada Customs, at paras 201-204:

Another extremely disquieting aspect of certain OPCA movements is a belief that individuals are authorized to take extrajudicial vigilante actions against court actors, including judges. Naturally, these illegal actions are cloaked with some kind of purported thought fictitious authority, most commonly as an expression of the “mutant” common law in a jury or court process. Typical language is formation of “common law”, “people’s” or “de jure” posses, juries, and trials. Other times OPCA litigants announce they are forming their own court, on the spot, using their “personal inherent jurisdiction”. A third related scenario is where an OPCA litigant claims that it is notaries who are the true judges or possess some supervisory, judicial authority ... Othertimes OPCA litigants will threaten judges with sanctions from international courts and tribunals, real or imaginary. ... Freeman-on-the-Land guru Robert Arthur Menard operates a group of self-declared and appointed vigilante “peace officers”, the “Canadian Common Corps Of Peace Officers” (“C3PO”).

[75] The “C3PO” example is not an isolated one. In Alberta a vigilante court which called itself “The Tacit Supreme In Law Court” operated a police force of uniformed “Territorial Marshals”: Donald J Netolitzky, “The History of the Organized Pseudolegal Argument Phenomenon in Canada” (2016) 53(3) Alta L Rev 609 at 628-629. This fictional court claimed to terminate criminal prosecutions of its members. 

[76] In Fearn v Canada Customs, at para 205, Justice Tilleman observed escalation to violence by OPCA litigants is a more common phenomenon in the US than in Canada. That is no longer the case. 

[77] Recently, a Freeman-on-the-Land, Amos Edwin McKechnie went so far as to in court declare he has the right under his law to kill judges, lawyers, police, corrections and government personnel, and he will kill them, except if they act according to his OPCA-based pseudolegal demands: McKechnie (Re), 2018 ABQB 493; McKechnie (Re), 2018 ABQB 677. McKechnie has been evaluated as a high threat of violence to any non-compliant justice system participant, and is currently detained facing multiple trials. 

[78] OPCA Detaxer Ian Bush issued a “summons” from the “High Court of Humanitarian Justice” that demanded former Chief Judge Alban Garon appear at a vigilante court process: R v Bush, 2017 ONSC 2202 at para 110. Chief Judge Garon did not comply. Ian Bush subsequently conducted a home invasion of Chief Judge Garon’s residence, during which Bush hogtied, tortured, and killed by suffocation Chief Judge Garon, his wife, and an unfortunate neighbor who happened to be in the residence when Bush accessed the residence via subterfuge: R v Bush, 2017 ONSC 7426 at para 2; R v Bush, 2017 ONSC 7050 at para 3. This was only one attack in Bush’s broader plan to rob and murder a list of judges, government officials, lawyers, and human rights activists: R v Bush, 2017 ONSC 7627 at paras 9, 29-31. 

[79] These are only examples of more violent and dangerous activities by Canadians with OPCA beliefs who exercise what they say is their own authority, or that of vigilante court and police organs: Donald J Netolitzky, “Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Arguments [OPCA] in Canada, an Attack on the Legal System” (2016) 10 JPPL 137; Barbara Perry, David C Hofmann & Ryan Scrivens, “Working Paper 17-02: Broadening our Understanding of Anti-Authority Movements in Canada” (Waterloo: TSAS, August 2017). Vigilante court proceedings, orders, and decisions are a dangerous precursor of elevated illegal activity by persons who have adopted pseudolaw: Netolitzky, “Attack on the Legal System” at 186; Stephen A Kent & Robin D Willey, “Sects, Cults, and the Attack on Jurisprudence” (2013) 14 Rutgers’ JL & Religion 306 at 319-329. 

[80] In light of these facts I conclude that Knutson deploying a fictional decision of a fraudulent vigilante court is a very serious form of litigation misconduct. That, too, warrants investigation of whether Knutson should be made subject to court access restrictions. 

B. Other Indicia of Abusive Litigation 

[81] In addition to the many variations on abusive OPCA concepts that Knutson has employed in his litigation, he has also exhibited other litigation misconduct indicia identified in Chutskoff v Bonora and its successor decisions. 

[82] I conclude that Knutson’s attempt to re-open the Bank of Nova Scotia Default Judgment is a form of collateral attack. His litigation attempts to frustrate the collection of his debts and foreclosure were hopeless. His appeal in the MCAP action had no prospect of success. 

[83] Knutson has also sought impossible or disproportionate remedies, including: 1. $1 million “common law” intellectual property claims on his name, biometric data, and bodily excreta, 2. “four fold” damages “per Luke 19:8”, 3. Charter remedies vs a non-government entity, a bank, and 4. criminal investigation and prosecution in a civil proceeding. 

[84] The multiple orders that Knutson vacate the mortgaged residence in the MCAP action indicate he does not follow court instructions. He refused to comply with instructions to cooperate with the realtor hired to conduct the court-ordered sale. 

[85] As the passages and documents reproduced from Knutson’s materials indicate he has advanced unmeritorious claims of conspiracy, fraud and improper conduct by institutions and lawyers.

Nonhuman Animals, Extraterrestrials and AI

'Harm to Nonhuman Animals from AI: a Systematic Account and Framework' by Simon Coghlan and Christine Parker in (2023) 36(25) Philosophy & Technology comments 

This paper provides a systematic account of how artificial intelligence (AI) technologies could harm nonhuman animals and explains why animal harms, often neglected in AI ethics, should be better recognised. After giving reasons for caring about animals and outlining the nature of animal harm, interests, and wellbeing, the paper develops a comprehensive ‘harms framework’ which draws on scientist David Fraser’s influential mapping of human activities that impact on sentient animals. The harms framework is fleshed out with examples inspired by both scholarly literature and media reports. This systematic account and framework should help inform ethical analyses of AI’s impact on animals and serve as a comprehensive and clear basis for the development and regulation of AI technologies to prevent and mitigate harm to nonhumans. 

... This paper provides a systematic account and a ‘harms framework’ for understanding how artificial intelligence (AI) technologies could damage the interests of nonhuman animals (hereafter ‘animals’). Technology has sometimes greatly benefitted animals, such as via modern veterinary medicine or agricultural machines that relieved ‘beasts of burden’ (Linzey & Linzey, 2016). Yet, technology has also profoundly harmed nonhumans. Construction of the Chicago stockyards and its assembly-line systems in the 1800s, for example, enabled the mass slaughter and processing of animals (Blanchette, 2020; Sinclair, 2002). Around the 1950s, specialised factory-farming technologies like sow stalls, battery cages, and automated sheds further amplified intentional harm to farmed individuals. The Chicago stockyards also soon led to Henry Ford’s assembly-line automobiles, the modern ancestors of which unintentionally kill and injure millions of animals annually (Ree et al., 2015). 

Today, in the twenty-first century, AI has significant potential to harm animals. AI refers to digital technologies that perform tasks associated with intelligent beings like classifying, predicting, and inferring (Copeland, 2022). AI’s growing power owes much to increasing data from, for example, the digital economy, online life, and manifold and integrated sensors in the environment and on or in human and animal bodies (e.g. as wearables)—the so-called Internet of Things or IoT. Its power also stems from modern machine learning (ML), including machine vision, natural language processing, and speech recognition. 

In ML, a system is trained on data from which it learns to make new classifications and inferences beyond its explicit programming. We shall in this paper side-step human-level or general AI (and AI that is arguably sentient), concentrating instead on narrow (and non-sentient) AI that is developed and used for specific purposes (Russell, 2019),Footnote 1 which is arguably of more pressing moral concern than the emergence of very human-like AI. 

Some existing technologies used to manage animals, such as automation in chicken sheds and dairies, may be augmented by AI. Moreover, some robots, drones, and vehicles incorporate AI in ways that may benefit or harm animals. Often the intention in developing and using AI is to positively benefit animals. For example, smart home applications for animal companions (Bhatia et al., 2020) and smart agriculture (Makinde et al., 2019; Neethirajan, 2021b) are often marketed as boons for animal welfare through better monitoring and control of the conditions in which they are kept. Another use that might benefit animals is AI image recognition to help detect illegal wildlife trafficking (O’Brien & Pirotta, 2022). Yet, as we show in some detail, AI can also act—both independently and with existing technologies—to create and amplify harms to animals (Sparrow & Howard, 2021; Tuyttens et al., 2022). 

A tendency exists to see advances in AI as inevitably bringing ‘improvements across every aspect of life’ (Santow, 2020). For example, autonomous machine intelligence can seem more objective and less prejudiced than human intelligence. Nonetheless, society is increasingly recognising AI’s potential for ill (Pasquale, 2020; Tasioulas, 2022; Yeung, 2022). Despite this, the burgeoning scholarship in AI ethics (Bender et al., 2021; Buolamwini & Gebru, 2018; Eubanks, 2018; O’Neil, 2016), while vital and sometimes courageous in critiquing Big Tech power and algorithmic injustice, has largely ignored animals. While some ethicists, including Peter Singer (Singer & Tse, 2022), have recently begun to correct this oversight (see also, e.g.Bendel, 2016, 2018; Bossert & Hagendorff, 2021a; Hagendorff, 2022; Owe & Baum, 2021; Ziesche, 2021), dedicated work on AI and animals is relatively rare. 

This paper’s systematic account of animal harm helps address that gap by setting out the breadth of contexts and plurality of ways in which animals may be harmed by AI. Drawing on the work of animal scientist David Fraser (Fraser, 2012), we develop a harms framework that includes intentional, unintentional, proximate, and more distant impacts of AI. While we do not propose specific ethical or legal responses, the framework provides a comprehensive and clear basis for crafting design, regulatory, and policy responses for animals. 

The paper runs as follows. Section 2 outlines why concern for animal harms is warranted despite a general neglect of animals in AI ethics scholarship, explains the plural range of harms animals can arguably experience, and introduces a practical five-part harms framework or typology that recognises different types and causes of harm to animals from AI. The framework includes intentional harms that are legal or condemned, direct and indirect unintentional harm, and foregone benefits. Section 3 then uses the framework to identify and illustrate actual and possible AI harms to animals in each of the five categories, based on a narrative review of literature. Section 4 concludes by considering implications of our framework and suggesting directions for further research.

'Restating Copyright Law’s Originality Requirement' by Justin Hughes in (2021) 44 Columbia Journal of Law & Arts 383 notes 

The Comments and Reporters’ Notes to § 6 devote an unusual amount of space to human authorship. The draft Restatement takes the view that “[t]o qualify for copyright protection, a work of authorship must be authored by a human being,” and “not, for example . . . works created by nonhuman animals.” The limited case law in this area is sufficiently nuanced as to make one wonder if the Reporters are trying to eliminate preemptively the possibility of “authorship” by artificial intelligence, but this is apparently not their intent. Recognizing that “[a] computer program might someday produce an output so divorced from the original human creator,” the “Restatement does not take a position on” authorship by artificial minds. 

The case law on nonhuman authorship is basically of two sorts. First, there are the cases in which the literary work in question was allegedly authored by sentient beings of a divine, celestial, or spiritual nature; I will call these the “spiritual being cases.” Second, there is one case—the 2018 Naruto v. Slater decision—in which the visual works in question (photos) were arguably authored by a nonhuman primate. The Naruto decision was a fairly singular exercise. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) attempted to bring suit on behalf of Naruto, a crested macaque monkey, against the publisher (and copyright claimant) of a book called Monkey Selfies. 

Both the district court and Ninth Circuit panel concluded that animals do not have standing under Title 17 using “a simple rule of statutory interpretation” previously crafted by the Ninth Circuit: “[I]f an Act of Congress plainly states that animals have statutory standing, then animals have statutory standing. If the statute does not so plainly state, then animals do not have statutory standing.”  This does not really strike me as a principle of copyright law. It was a ruling that nonhuman animals do not have standing under federal law when the law is silent on that issue, not a holding that, as the draft Restatement represents, “[t]he photographs taken by [nonhuman animals] do not qualify for copyright protection because they were not authored by a human being.” Moreover, the connection between the Naruto fact pattern and the spiritual being cases was only made by the Naruto trial court, not the Ninth Circuit. 

It is true that the spiritual being cases have pondered the question of whether a work “claimed to embody the words of celestial beings rather than human beings[] is copyrightable at all.” But we are adrift in terms of direct answers that are holdings and not dicta. Instead, when originality can be attributed to combined activities of humans and sentient nonhumans, courts will conclude that the human participant(s) added enough original expression to support a copyright. For example, in the Ninth Circuit’s 1997 Urantia Foundation v. Maaherra decision, the panel found that humans “pos[ing] specific questions to the spiritual beings,” then selecting and arranging the spiritual beings’ answers was sufficiently creative to confer a copyright. 

Similarly, in the 2000 Penguin Books v. New Christian Church of Full Endeavor decision, a judge in the Southern District of New York considered a “defense of lack of originality” based on the human originator of a book—Helen Schucman— testifying that “she began to hear a ‘Voice’ that would speak to her whenever she was prepared to listen”; that the Voice told her to take notes; and that, for seven years, “she filled nearly thirty stenographic notebooks with words she believed were dictated to her by the Voice". 

But she also made revisions with a (human) collaborator, William Thetford. In addition, “at least some of the editing and shaping of the manuscript was initiated by Schucman; the manuscript went through two additional drafts, one edited by Schucman, one edited by Schucman in collaboration with Thetford; and during this process sections were “rewritten so that the test would flow smoothly and communicate clearly its intended message.” Another colleague, Kenneth Wapnick, later made additional editorial suggestions. 

Concluding that the arrangement of the materials had been determined by the human contributors, that the text “reflect[ed] many of Schucman’s personal interests and tastes,” and that all the editorial changes “were initiated by Schucman, Thetford, or Wapnick,” the court found that there was enough creativity to support human authorship (regardless of whether there was divine joint authorship). But the Penguin Books court went further, offering the alternative reasoning that the work was, plain and simple, “a literary work authored by Schucman” and that, “[as] a matter of law, dictation from a non-human source should not be a bar to a copyright. 

Perhaps the only other spiritual beings case of note is a 1941 district court decision, Oliver v St Germain Foundation, in which the copyright owner Frederick Spencer Oliver, describes himself as the amanuensis to whom “letters” were dictated by Phylos the Thibetan, a spirit.  But the court does not directly hold that the work is uncopyrightable because of the spiritual being source of the expression. Instead, the court treats the spiritual being’s words as “facts” being reported by Frederick Spencer Oliver, analogous to an author of a series of interviews (with humans), who would not have copyright over the words of the interviewees.  The Oliver court also reasons that the defendant copied neither prose nor style and arrangement of the plaintiff’s work,  intimating that those might be protected as original expression from the human contributor to the project. 

Does any of this belong in a Restatement of Copyright? I doubt it. The Copyright Office Compendium says that the office will not register works by nonhumans, but we do not need an ALI Restatement to regurgitate an agency regulation that is not binding on courts. The day sentient refugees from some intergalactic war arrive on Earth and are granted asylum in Iceland, copyright law will be the least of our problems. But I am confident that once those sentient aliens are “nationals” in a Berne country, nothing in Naruto, Urania, Penguin Books, or Oliver will keep them from being treated as “authors” under American copyright law. 

Similarly, once some AI is sentient enough to demand its own civil rights and protection under the Thirteenth Amendment, my guess is that “person” in copyright law will not be limited to homo sapiens. (Since the Reporters apparently agreed todefer to the future on the question of AI authorship, some bits and pieces of the 2020 draft—like Illustration 6 to § 6—should probably be dropped.). Same for the day when a chimeric half human/half horse is proven to be sentient; “person” in copyright law will include them. These issues are fun conjecture for academics, but such issues are so rarefied as to wonder why the draft Restatement discusses them at all

NWO

In Bank of Montreal v. Lew, 2022 BCSC 1320 the Supreme Court of British Columbia deals with 'New World Order' claim. 

The judgment states 

 [1] Karen Wai King Lew appeals the order of Master Robertson made April 28, 2022, granting conduct of sale on Ms. Lew's residential property to the Bank of Montreal. The Bank of Montreal is the first mortgagee on the residential property. An order nisi of foreclosure was made September 21, 2021, and the redemption period expired in March 2022. Ms. Lew asserts that Master Robertson made the order in error because the mortgage had been forgiven on February 8, 2022, pursuant to the doctrine of NESARA/GESARA, acronyms that stand for National Economic Security and Reformation Act and Global Economic Security and Reformation Act. She also asserts that Master Robertson was biased and ought to have recused herself. 

[2] The Bank of Montreal and the second mortgagee, Ming Shek Liu, assert that no error was made because NESARA/GESARA do not form part of Canadian or British Columbian foreclosure law, there was no evidence the mortgage was forgiven, there was no bias on the part of Master Robertson, and the appeal was commenced more than 14 days after the order was made, and so the appeal is out of time. ...  

[5] The order under appeal is an order that the Bank of Montreal have conduct of sale of Ms. Lew's foreclosed property. An order granting a conduct of sale in a foreclosure proceeding is interlocutory: Canadian Western Bank at paras. 11 and 15; and Urban Land Holdings Ltd. v. Babich, 2019 BCSC 1318 at para. 24.  ... 

Whether the Mortgage was Forgiven 

[8] At the appeal before Master Robertson, Ms. Lew did not lead any evidence that her mortgage was forgiven. The transcript of the proceedings before Master Robertson demonstrates that Ms. Lew came to court to ask for more time because she did not want to lose her home. She explained that she had unsuccessfully attempted to obtain a reverse mortgage and a loan from a private lender. She also explained that her sister was arriving in Vancouver the next day and would lend her the money to redeem the mortgage. She did not assert that the mortgage had been forgiven, lead any evidence of mortgage forgiveness, or make any reference to NESARA/GESARA. 

[9] By the time the Bank of Montreal's application for conduct of sale came on before Master Robertson, it had already been adjourned once because Ms. Lew's lawyer had withdrawn, and Ms. Lew asked for more time. The hearing before Master Robertson was peremptory on Ms. Lew. Master Robertson declined to adjourn it again to give Ms. Lew more time, but she made her order effective May 26, 2022, approximately four weeks after the hearing, so that if Ms. Lew arranged financing in the four weeks between the hearing and the effective date of the order, she could still redeem the mortgage, and the conduct‑of‑sale order would not take effect. 

[10] In this court, Ms. Lew made submissions on the NESARA/GESARA. She described it as a pending new world order that has its roots in the United States (NESARA), but has evolved to a global movement (GESARA), to which many countries are signatories, including Canada. She asserted that it involves resignation of world leaders, new currencies that will be backed by gold, and a more harmonious and peaceful world where the enslavement qualities of debt will be abolished. 

[11] Ms. Lew made submissions on the intent of NESARA/GESARA law by reference to a document entitled "GESARA.news" with a website address using the same words. 

[12] This document set out 20 points pertaining to GESARA that include that all credit card, mortgage, and other bank debt due to illegal banking and government activities will be cancelled. This is referred to as a "jubilee" or complete forgiveness of debt. NESARA/GESARA principles establish new presidential and congressional elections within 120 days of GESARA's announcement (presumably this is a reference to United States elections). There will be an interim government that will cancel all national emergencies and return some unspecified political entity back to constitutional law. I assume that the unspecified political entity is the United States but perhaps the intention is a global constitutional regime. GESARA creates a new U.S. treasury rainbow currency backed by gold, silver, and platinum precious metals, ending the bankruptcy the U.S. initiated by Franklin Roosevelt in 1933. GESARA establishes peace throughout the world. GESARA releases unprecedented prosperity with enormous sums of money for humanitarian purposes. GESARA will establish the quantum financial system called QFS, and the quantum voting system called QVS, as well as a global currency reset and a revaluation of currencies. 

[13] Ms. Lew did not provide the Court with any Canadian or British Columbian legislation implementing NESARA or GESARA. Nor did she provide any legal authority incorporating the principles of NESARA and GESARA into creditor/debtor law or the law of foreclosure in British Columbia. With regard to evidence that her mortgage was cancelled pursuant to NESARA/GESARA, Ms. Lew explained that for the hearing before Master Robertson, she had tried to upload her bank statements, which she asserts shows that the mortgage balance was zero at one point in time and that a legal fee that the bank charged her had been reversed on February 8, 2022. 

[14] She explained that she was unable to upload the bank statements, and she did not know that she should have an application binder into which she inserted her evidence. She advised that she first learned that when she saw, over Microsoft Teams, Master Robertson being provided with binders on the matters as they were called. She realized she did not have a binder that she was required to have. She advised this Court that at that time before Master Robertson, she froze and did not know what to say. 

[15] The transcript of the proceedings shows that Ms. Lew made submissions as I have described. She did not tell Master Robertson that she had evidence showing that her mortgage had been forgiven that she was unable to get before the court. Ms. Lew described this evidence to me but did not seek to have fresh evidence introduced on the appeal. Accordingly, there was no evidence before Master Robertson, and there is no evidence on this appeal, that the mortgage was forgiven. 

[16] It is also difficult to understand how that evidence could displace the order nisi requiring Ms. Lew to pay the Bank of Montreal $209,721.51 to redeem the mortgage and the evidence before Master Robertson that the Bank of Montreal had not received any payments towards the mortgage between the date of the order nisi and the appearance before Master Robertson. ... 

[18] There is no basis on which to conclude that Master Robertson was clearly wrong in the order she made. Ms. Lew did not lead before Master Robertson and has not led before me evidence that the mortgage had been forgiven. She did not attempt to persuade Master Robertson, and she has not persuaded me, that NESARA/GESARA principles are part of the law governing creditor, debtor or foreclosure proceedings in British Columbia. 

Bias 

[19] Ms. Lew also asserts that Master Robertson was biased and ought to have recused herself. She asserts two reasons for the bias. First, she asserts that the NESARA/GESARA pending world order is well known to the banks and would have been well known to Master Robertson before she became a master. She submitted that Master Robertson became a master because she knew that her law firm's foreclosure practice would be ending when all mortgages and other debts were forgiven. 

[20] I have not accepted that NESARA/GESARA is part of the Canadian legal landscape. I do not accept that Ms. Lew has proven there is a new world order pending that will end foreclosure proceedings, let alone that Master Robertson knew of this and made a career change to avoid its consequences on her law practice.

As with sovereign citizenship, the NESARA ideology is incoherent. One exponent explains

Above us, in the skies, cloaked from our view and sometimes existing in higher dimensions, is a fleet of extraterrestrials of human origin, from places like the Pleiades, Sirius, Lyra, Vega, Arcturus, Andromeda and many other regions of space. They are our family – our ancestors and, in some cases, our future. These extraterrestrial but human visitors have come to assist us with the 2012 Ascension ….. Some space brethren have taken birth among us as starseeds. Some have walked-in to bodies after birth. Some are able to change shape and walk among us unnoticed. 

While there exist ETs who are unfriendly, they are no longer allowed to approach the Earth. The ones approaching Earth to assist us with our planetary transformation come as our friends. They follow the commands of the same Heaven and the same God as we do. They are forces of love and light. We have nothing to fear from them and everything to gain from their willing assistance. 

We couldn’t have come as far as we have without their help. The people who defeated the NWO are these galactic-human friends along with a large number of terrestrials who are variously known as their “Earth Allies” or “White Knights.” It is they who will bring in NESARA when the time is right. And it is they who will reveal themselves to us when the time for “First Contact” arrives. 

We’ve actually had many contacts with them in the past; in fact they are responsible for seeding this planet with the human species in the first place – their own species. We are their progeny. We did not evolve from apes. What we call “First Contact” is the first time the whole planet will be aware of their presence. Even before that time but after NESARA is announced, they will begin giving us technologies that will allow us to end our dependence on oil, travel far, communicate quickly, and cure most diseases among us. 

They will give us devices that will allow us to see to all our food, clothing and other needs without having to produce them in factories. Eventually, there will be no such thing as poverty or disease on Planet Earth. There will be no such thing as religions that fight with one another. There will be no such thing as wars. 

Our space brothers and sisters will prepare us for our Ascension in 2012. Apparently, what we’ll see when they arrive defies imagination. Their simple presence in the sky will have such an uplifting effect on us that we won’t be the same from that moment on. 

The shadow government has ridiculed the idea that there are extraterrestrial craft in our skies in order to maintain their control of this planet. 

In truth, the U.S. military has benefited for years from technology transfers (anti-gravity technology, the computer chip, fiber optics, Teflon, Kevlar, the “Looking Glass” [google], stealth technology). 

The U.S. government has itself perfected spacecraft run by a secret space agency called Solar Warden that regularly travel between Earth and the Moon or Mars. They perfected teleportation back in the late 1960s and early 70s.

Bad Vibes

In Psychology Board of Australia v Meulblok (Review and Regulation) [2020] VCAT 579 the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) has voiced concern regarding a health practitioner's use of so-called ‘energy medicine’ in therapeutic sessions and disregard of a patient's privacy.

VCAT found

The respondent engaged in professional misconduct within the meaning of the definition in paragraphs (a) and (c) of s 5 of the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law (National Law) in that, from on or around the period 1 August 2017 to 2 February 2018,

• she transgressed the professional boundaries that should and ordinarily do exist between a psychologist and her patient and/or former patient in that she engaged in an inappropriate dual relationship including a personal and intimate relationship with her patient and/or former patient Mr XY. (Allegation 1) 

• The respondent engaged in professional misconduct within the meaning of the definition in paragraph (a) of s 5 of the National Law in that between August 2017 and September 2017, and during the course of her of psychological treatment with Mr XY, the respondent provided treatment that was not evidence based and was not clinically justified when she touched parts of Mr XY’s body. (Allegation 2) 

• The respondent engaged in professional misconduct within the meaning of the definition in paragraph (a) of s 5 of the National Law in that on or around November 2017 and December 2017, she failed to maintain Mr XY’s privacy and confidentiality and/or transgressed professional boundaries that should and ordinarily do exist between a psychologist and her patient and/or former patient, when she discussed Mr XY with her husband, including the prospect of Mr XY returning to therapy with her and by encouraging Mr XY to pursue a relationship with her husband. (Allegation 3)

An outcome - with the agreement of the Psychology Board and the practitioner - is that under the National Law the practitioner is disqualified from applying for registration as a registered health practitioner for a period of two years and is prohibited from providing (whether as employee, contractor, manager or volunteer, and whether directly or indirectly) any health service involving the provision of mental health, psychological or counselling services for a period of two years.

VCAT's overview states

Ms Sheridan Leanda Meulblok was a registered psychologist from August 2000, when she was first registered, until December 2018, when she did not renew her registration and it lapsed.

This case is about Ms Meulblok’s professional conduct between August 2017 and February 2018 in relation to a patient, Mr XY, and the consequences of that conduct.

It concerns an inappropriate relationship Ms Meulblok pursued with Mr XY, including personal and intimate communications and physical contact; persisting with contact after he had asked her to stop; breaches of his privacy; and a failure to safeguard his well-being. It is about the risk of serious harm posed by a psychologist who fails to recognise or acknowledge that professional boundaries are being blurred and then crossed; fails to seek timely supervision; and puts his or her own emotional or other needs above the patient’s care and well-being. The risk is well-known and in this case was realised. The conduct caused serious and significant harm to Mr XY. These are professional disciplinary proceedings under the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law (National Law). The Psychology Board of Australia (Board) has referred three allegations to the Tribunal: 

Allegation 1: between 1 August 2017 to 2 February 2018, Ms Meulblok transgressed the professional boundaries that should and ordinarily do exist between a psychologist and her patient or former patient by engaging in an inappropriate dual relationship including a personal and intimate relationship with a patient/former patient; 

Allegation 2: between 1 August 2017 and September 2017, during the course of her psychological treatment, she provided treatment that was not evidence-based and was not clinically justified when she touched parts of Mr XY’s body (the so-called ‘energy medicine’ therapy); and 

Allegation 3: in November and December 2017 she failed to maintain Mr XY’s privacy and confidentiality and transgressed professional boundaries when she discussed Mr XY with her husband, including the prospect of Mr XY returning to therapy with her, and encouraged Mr XY to pursue a friendship with her husband.

Soon after receiving notice of the complaint, Ms Meulblok took full responsibility for her conduct. She expressed shame and regret for the damage it has caused to Mr XY, her family and her profession. She cooperated with conditions imposed by the Board’s Immediate Action Committee (IAC) in April 2018. In late 2018, she decided to cease practice as a psychologist and not renew her registration. She does not intend to return to practice in the future.

Ms Meulblok admits the three allegations, including that she acted in breach of:

• the Australian Psychological Society’s Code of Ethics (Code) and the associated guidelines including the: 

• Australian Psychological Society’s Guidelines for managing professional boundaries and multiple relationships (version with effect from March 2016); 

• Australian Psychological Society’s Ethical Guidelines on the prohibition of sexual activity with clients (version with effect from February 2017); 

• Australian Psychological Society’s Ethical Guidelines on confidentiality (version with effect from December 2017); and 

• Australian Psychological Society’s Ethical Guidelines relating to procedures/assessments that involve psychologist-client physical contact (version with effect from October 2016).

On the basis of Ms Meulblok’s admissions, the agreed facts supported by the evidence in the Tribunal Book, and the expert report of Dr Christopher Lennings, we found the allegations proved and made those findings at the hearing. We found that the conduct in allegation 1 is appropriately characterised as professional misconduct under paragraphs (a) and (c) of the definition in s 5 of the National Law, and the conduct in Allegations 2 and 3 are professional misconduct under paragraph (a) of the definition. ...

Ms Meulblok had no prior disciplinary history over an 18-year career as a psychologist and had a local reputation as a well-regarded psychologist with notable success in treating eating disorders.

This case illustrates that a failure to step back in time from crossing professional boundaries, reflect and modify one’s conduct, raise the issues and their solution in formal supervision, and appropriately transfer the patient’s care, can end a career.

In dealing with 'energy medicine' VCAT states

[4.8] During the treatment sessions, the notifier referred to chronic pain in his neck, shoulders and jaw. In response, in or around August 2017, Ms Meulblok introduced the concept of ‘energy medicine’ treatment during a session. She suggested that childhood trauma might be the cause of this pain and ‘energy medicine’ may be able to release the trauma and relieve the pain. 

[4.9] The ‘energy medicine’ consisted of Ms Meulblok sitting on the couch next to the notifier and placing her hands on parts of his body that were experiencing pain. Ms Meulblok practiced the ‘energy medicine’ by: (a) on 14 August 2017, by placing her hand on his shoulder for approximately 20 seconds; (b) on 22 September 2017, by placing her hands on his back, shoulder, chest and jaw. 

[4.10] The notifier was under the impression that the ‘energy medicine’ practice was a proper approach and well-founded. 

[4.11] Ms Meulblok knew that there was no evidence base for the ‘energy medicine’ described above and it had no clinical justification. 

[4.12] In the circumstances, there was no appropriate rationale or purpose for the physical contact and any consent obtained was not informed consent. The physical contact was not documented, nor was any rationale, purpose or consent obtained. 

[4.13] At the time of the physical contact, Ms Meulblok had developed affection for, and attraction to, the notifier. Ms Meulblok knew that the physical contact increased the likelihood of sexualisation of the therapeutic relationship.

At [62] VCAT states

Counsel for the Board provided a table of decisions of this Tribunal in the last 10 years involving personal, intimate or sexual boundary breaches by psychologists, to illustrate the range of facts and circumstances that have come before the Tribunal, and the consequential orders made. The cases show that loss of the right to practise, whether by suspension or disqualification, will be almost inevitable, and that the orders made will depend very much on the particular circumstances of the case.

That table is a useful resource for health law students.