Policy Fall 2022 Update

Cornell Policy Debate registered teams in competition for 5 tournaments in Fall of 2022. With a younger team of mostly junior-varsity eligible debaters but with longer-term goals in mind, Cornell debaters competed as varsity in all but one of the 5 tournaments. Notable achievements include getting to semifinals at the Brad Smith University of Rochester tournament (varsity), and semifinals at the United States Military Academy tournament (junior-varsity). The policy resolution for this year is about vesting legal personhood rights or duties in artificial intelligence, non-human animals, or nature. Cornell's main affirmative case for fall of 2022 argued that artificial intelligence systems should have inventorship rights on certain patent applications as a way to spur innovation in AI-utilizing industries in the United States