Today was another uneventful day for Maryland courts addressing the issue of event contracts and prediction markets. It was uneventful because neither the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Court of Appeals-4th Circuit, U.S. District Court-Maryland, or the Supreme Court of Maryland made determinations about the issues of artificial intelligence, event contracts, or prediction markets.
I also dropped by (at least digitally) to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and saw more of the ho-hum as the CFTC also did not address artificial intelligence, event contracts, or prediction markets.
The law, in other words, has been mum so far this week on these subjects.
One subject I would like to see the court address is the subject of artificial intelligence itself. Artificial intelligence is defined as the application of computer systems able to perform tasks or produce output normally requiring human intelligence, especially by applying machine learning techniques to large collections of data. Artificial intelligence can also be considered as a program or other piece of software that performs tasks or produces output normally requiring human intelligence.
Maryland courts lately have not addressed the issues of artificial intelligence, event contracts, or prediction models. Specifically, regarding artificial intelligence, the courts have not addressed the question of what is so artificial about intelligence?
Intelligence is viewed as the ability to acquire knowledge and skills. Intelligence may also refer to people who have the ability to collect military or political information. Artificial refers to items made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally.
It sounds like intelligence either evolves from humans naturally or is made up by humans. The more important issue in my opinion is who owns the intelligence and how is the intelligence used. I have no problem with “real” being used to describe intelligence. Should law, the findings of a court, be used to keep political, moral, ecclesiastical, power in the hands of a few? Should law be used to tell us who has sufficient intelligence to conduct commerce or make decisions about families and who does not?
My 30,000-foot view tells me that humans may be going back to the serfdom era where the power of production remains more entrenched in the hands of a few while the working population is allowed to shrink. That may include how intelligence is defined.
Alton Drew
15 September 2026
Lawyers Write the Bets. Bankers Sell the Bets. 