Sadly Not, Havoc Dinosaur: The personal website of David Anthony Colarusso

A black-and-white illustration depicting a surreal encounter between a man and a gigantic dinosaur. The dinosaur stands towering over the man, with its mouth slightly open revealing a set of sharp teeth, and has deep, textured skin that reflects a meticulous level of detail. The dinosaur's posture suggests both power and a kind of graceful menace. The man, dressed in a suit and appearing quite small in comparison, looks up at the dinosaur with an expression that suggests awe or perhaps resignation. Above them, a speech bubble from the man reads, 'SADLY NOT, HAVOC DINOSAUR.' This caption adds a humorous or ironic touch to the otherwise imposing scene, implying a dialogue that contrasts with the visual intensity of the moment.

Latent Space "Photography" with touch ups by Colarusso

My name is David Colarusso.^† I founded and co-direct Suffolk University Law School's Legal Innovation & Technology (LIT) Lab. By training I'm an attorney & science educator. By experience, I'm a data scientist, craftsman, and writer. Mostly, I build things: furniture, software, reasoned arguments...

My work focuses on NLP/AI, data standards, document automation, and increasing access to justice. I taught high school physics & astronomy for six years before law school. I also ran a small software company on the side. After graduation, I became a public defender and stayed with the agency for another six years. As an attorney, I started asking questions about how we used data; this led to me making suggestions, and before long, I moved from my role as a line attorney to that of data scientist. I started freelance writing, took on some Suffolk Law students as interns, and began teaching there as an adjunct professor. In 2017, I left the defenders and joined Suffolk full-time to start the Lab.

After much consideration, I have landed on my AI tools hot take. I am a contextual contrarian. If you are on the AI Hype Train™ I will try hard to derail you—pointing out the very real dangers people are facing in the here & now from these tools. But if you dismiss the pro-social uses of AI out of hand, I'll point out where it can be used to help those in need.

I like playing with LEGO and Rubik's Cubes, and on weekends my kids and I read the Sunday comics and go on adventures in Minecraft. This website is a place for me to share some of my work and play, along with thoughts that don't fit nicely into a social media post. If you're looking to talk, or follow along with my work, I suggest reaching out to me on Mastodon @Colarusso@mastodon.social where I'm pretty active.

^† My full name is David Anthony Colarusso, and in the twilight of the 20th Century when the internet and I were young, I entered my full name into an online anagram generator. Sadly, even decades later, I still can't shake the image of some poor soul breaking the news to that dinosaur.