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A.I. note takers are making lawyers nervous

nytimes.com

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Re: A.I. note takers are making lawyers nervous

#111

Post by cjohnson318 »

properbrew wrote: post #110

I think tools like this are needed but the current default of "random SaaS bot joins every call and uploads the whole thing somewhere" feels like the worst possible version of it. The whole point should be that the people in the meeting can actually focus on the conversation rather than half listening while trying to write down enough notes to remember it later. If you're paying people good money to be in a meeting,…

100% I picked up shorthand to take notes quicker, but I'm still half-in/half-out of the conversation, mentally deciding what's important enough to jot down. This sounds like a great solution.

Re: A.I. note takers are making lawyers nervous

#112

Post by tbagman »

I know this is also a legal question, but I sometimes wonder about ML-based meeting transcription and summary services. Pre-ML, if you wanted to record a meeting, the de-facto process (at least in the US) was to announce before the meeting that it was going to be recorded, and then announce once you started recording that it was being recorded. Now that we're in an ML world, the default seems to be transcription and summarization is turned on and none of the meeting attendees are asked and most do not have the ability to turn it off.

That feels hinky to me...

Re: A.I. note takers are making lawyers nervous

#113

Post by runfreeapps »

In business communication of every kind, voice, text, emails, paper sticky-notes, doesn't matter. Assume someone is sharing your information with someone that you don't know is sharing it. Communicate as if you have an audience at all times. Also, I am not a lawyer, but the error rates are too high for anything transcribed to stand up in court with a good lawyer, unless corroborated by human witnesses.

Re: A.I. note takers are making lawyers nervous

#114

Post by SVI »

tbagman wrote: post #112

I know this is also a legal question, but I sometimes wonder about ML-based meeting transcription and summary services. Pre-ML, if you wanted to record a meeting, the de-facto process (at least in the US) was to announce before the meeting that it was going to be recorded, and then announce once you started recording that it was being recorded. Now that we're in an ML world, the default seems to be transcription and…

It certainly has a chilling effect. Meetings where there are robust discussions may become a thing of the past.

Re: A.I. note takers are making lawyers nervous

#115

Post by Terr_ »

fluoridation wrote: post #41
aspenmartin wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not inherent in transformer architecture, we do try to ingrain a sense of uncertainty but it’s difficult not only technically but also philosophically/culturally. How confident do you want the model to be in its answer to “why did Rome fall”? Lots of tools in our toolbelts to do better uncertainty calibration but it trades off against other capabilities and actually can be rather frustrating to interact with in agent…

>How confident do you want the model to be in its answer to “why did Rome fall”? The confidence level can be any, as long as it's reported accurately often enough. "This is my conjecture, but", "I'm not completely sure, but", and "most historians agree that" are all perfectly valid ways to start a sentence, which LLMs never use. They state mathematical truth, general consensus, hotly debated stances, and total fabric…

> > Like you can maintain a belief state and generate conditional on this and train to ensure belief state is stable and performant

> ways to start a sentence, which LLMs never use

A huge part of the problem is we've invented a document-generator setup which exploits human cognitive illusions, and even the smartest person can't constantly override the instinctive brain-bits that "sees" fictional entities and infers the intent of a mind. That makes it weirdly-hard to discuss the setup's shortfalls or how to improve it.

To wit: The machine does not possess any kind of confidence about how Rome fell. Or even whether Rome fell. It has "confidence" about which word/token will next in a "typical" document given the document-so-far has text like "How did Rome fall?" It may be straightforward to burn money training the system so that its "typical" story never has a computer-character with confident words about Roman history, but that's just papering over the underlying problem.

TLDR: We can't fix the thinking-habits or beliefs inside the mind of an entity that doesn't actually exist. Changing the story-generator to contain a tee-totaling Dracula dispensing life-advice doesn't mean we "cured the disease of vampirism."

Re: A.I. note takers are making lawyers nervous

#116

Post by Terr_ »

SecretDreams wrote: post #26
watwut wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically, it will be harder to hide illegal and unethical stuff companies routinely engage in.

Going to also be harder to hide completely legal, but not ideal stuff. Like randomly complaining about your boss to a colleague or casually discussing a feature you're stuck working on that you think is a bad idea.

Or even completely legal things that a majority of people agree with, ex:

"It seems that starting in 2025 one of your employees began spreading many bigly unfair and hateful lies about Dear Leader in team meetings. We at the Department of Truth would hate to see your operating license revoked for encouraging such unpatriotic behavior..."

Re: A.I. note takers are making lawyers nervous

#117

Post by exe34 »

watwut wrote: post #19
burningion wrote: post #6

The main point raised in the article is that these bots may void attorney client privileges. But the real danger with these IMO is that they're turning casual conversations into a permanent record, and one that will be completely discoverable in court, should the company get into trouble later.

Basically, it will be harder to hide illegal and unethical stuff companies routinely engage in.

Or indeed, people with ocd and compulsive thoughts will be charged for things they never did.

Re: A.I. note takers are making lawyers nervous

#118

Post by inetknght »

operation_moose wrote: post #12
coffeebeqn wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus they are super inaccurate. Gemini gets one of its three bullet subtly or very majorly wrong almost every time. Just a few weeks ago Gemini said we’re rolling out our payment setup in Russia. You know the place where we have 20+ sanctions packages on? We were talking about France in the meeting.

We've found they're surprisingly good if everyone on the call is using a decent headset. The problems start when using conference room audio or someone is on their laptop mic. If they miss a word they never do unintelligible , they just start playing madlibs based on the rest of the sentence. We just went through a round of 100+ (non-sensitive) VoC interviews and they really cut down the workload of compiling all of…

Their quality for different language accents also significantly varies.

Got a team with Indian, Chinese, Texan, British, and Australian? Your A.I.-powered translation tool is going to get 80% of your conversation wrong.

Re: A.I. note takers are making lawyers nervous

#119

Post by exe34 »

sdellis wrote: post #46
triceratops wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an argument for recording everyone on earth 24/7. Is that what you mean?

With the level of surveillance and erosion of privacy, that is essentially what is happening. We all know that we are being watched and surveilled. There is no longer an "argument". Anything you say in public or private could potentially be used against you in the future.

I wish that we would all insist that it starts at the highest level down, rather than the other way round. Maybe also if you look at information on me, I get notified and get to look at the information on you. Unfortunately surveillance is a one way street.

Re: A.I. note takers are making lawyers nervous

#120

Post by inetknght »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #79
gwbas1c wrote: post #47

Back when I was in college, in a fraternity, we always assumed that the phones were tapped. Specifically, we never spoke about alcohol or marijuana (now legal) on the phone. Even today, I generally assume that my phone could be tapped; even when talking with my trusted work colleagues, friends, and family. I'm extra careful about dirty jokes or "grey morality" in video conferences and email. The same applies to speak…

> Even today, I generally assume that my phone could be tapped; even when talking with my trusted work colleagues, friends, and family. Adding to that: If you live in a one-party consent state assume you're being recorded by any of the parties in a face-to-face conversation, too. Yeah-- it sucks that the world is this way. I deal with it. What I don't want to see are draconian controls on technology (which will ultim…

> If you live in a one-party consent state assume you're being recorded by any of the parties in a face-to-face conversation, too.

Even if you don't live in a one-party consent state, assume you're being (perhaps illegally) recorded by any of the parties in a face-to-face conversation too.

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