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A.I. note takers are making lawyers nervous

nytimes.com

171–180 of 204 posts

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

#171

Attorney here. I'm quite concerned that AI note-taking applications, if used by clients to keep track of conversations and meetings that would otherwise be privileged, might be jeopardizing their rights by doing so. I certainly have been advising clients myself, at least if I know them to be using AI for productivity or otherwise, not to use note-taking or chat tools during calls or meetings, or to discuss anything c…

Australian lawyer here and fully agree - this issue has been mentioned a few times in some recent Family Court cases (where self-representation and thus AI usage is more prevalent) but there hasn't been any direct decisions on it as there has been in the US. I would like to think that the same line of thinking would prevail here (i.e. that just because it could theoretically be read by someone else doesn't necessarily result in a waiver of privilege).

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

#172
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I say something inappropriate on the phone or over Discord, I always tell the NSA guy listening it was a joke.

This is an old joke, but as AI becomes more and more capable it becomes increasingly likely that the government will have some kind of intelligence sifting though every post you make and message you send.

the private sector is already doing it (based on the puppetted dead people profiles of facebook, and people being banned on discord for messages they sent a few years ago). given that data is quite easily handed over from private corporations to public goverment, id go a step further and say AI profiling is probably already happening at a certain level of governance. can you imagine the dystopia of when this is properly linked together? the system will be able to completely delete independant action from its limbs. "officer XYZ accessed nondeterministic AI summary of the perp's facebook messages based on an involuntary facial scan. AI summary stated the perp to have presented anti views. officer XYZ made the decision to shoot on sight, based on heightened danger presented by the AI assessment. no further investigation required, system functioned correctly, case closed"

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

#173

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.

Verbatim transcriptions are usually very good. Because even the ocasional "can/can't" replacement is usually obvious within the context of the full conversation. But the summarization feature is where the most ridiculous errors and omissions happens.

Ok zoom the default summary template is often lacking and incoherent, but switching it to the lengthy one “Discussion” works great. I think the default only works for single topic meetings where is rare.

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

#174
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The AI note summaries in meetings I'm in are frequently totally inaccurate. They are actually inaccurate in two ways: they fabricate things that were never said (but always kind of close to something that was said), and they emphasize the totally wrong thing (e.g. acting like the entire conversation was about one topic when that was just a very small part). I sincerely hope these aren't used in court.

They will be discovered and used in litigation, and the results will be hilarious. Think about how much lawyers pick apart language (like statutes or the constitution) that was written deliberately by humans and subject to review and revision. Now we're going to have lawyers, e.g. , seizing on word choice in AI notes that might have a sinister connotation when the original wording was innocuous.

> word choice in AI notes that might have a sinister connotation

Potentially sinister due to the biases of the model, as the model may have been trained using internet content that has a lot more fictional titillating evil overlord board meetings than the actual mind-numbing real thing. Training that included extremist anti-corporate dogma might even bias the language models towards hallucinating the worst possible misinterpretation.

I've seen whisper hallucinate whole legal arguments whole cloth when the AGC was broken in it and the audio went quiet-- so I think the language models in it are more than powerful enough to politically load a transcript.

Good practice should be to minimize any unnecessary stored records because ANY record just means more processing costs in discovery and god knows how much extra cost in litigation should it happen to have an unfavorable interpretation in light of some impossible to anticipate future litigation.

But if AI transcription must be used it would be might be prudent to save a copy of the original audio along with it.

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

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. Snowden has proven the US intelligence agencies can basically intercept anyone's electronic communications, and that they do this is a giant scale. And yet, we still see comments of people horrified when you said you assume as default that someone (or more likley, something) is listening. The normalcy bias is too strong.

I'm not horrified that they think someone is listening, the horror was from them self censoring out of fear of surveillance.

I apologize for mis-reading you. but, being careful with this stuff can't hurt. Well, yes, it can hurt the society, but keep you safe from the powers that be.

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

#176
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The AI note summaries in meetings I'm in are frequently totally inaccurate. They are actually inaccurate in two ways: they fabricate things that were never said (but always kind of close to something that was said), and they emphasize the totally wrong thing (e.g. acting like the entire conversation was about one topic when that was just a very small part). I sincerely hope these aren't used in court.

They will be discovered and used in litigation, and the results will be hilarious. Think about how much lawyers pick apart language (like statutes or the constitution) that was written deliberately by humans and subject to review and revision. Now we're going to have lawyers, e.g. , seizing on word choice in AI notes that might have a sinister connotation when the original wording was innocuous.

> seizing on word choice in AI notes that might have a sinister connotation

Ironic use of “sinister” when you probably mean “nefarious” and don't mean to perpetuate silly old superstitions about “left-handed” people being evil :p

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

#178

How many times have you guys been in a meeting, not realized someone turned on AI notes, and said things you would rather have not been recorded and auto-emailed to everyone after the meeting? For me it's happened more than a few times and while maybe there's a silver lining of people hearing the unvarnished truth, I think it's going to change the dynamics of meetings, in that people are not talking honestly anymore,…

It's not just work meetings. This is being taken to healthcare settings, also.

That's fine with me actually. I recently had an appointment where the doctor asked if he could use AI notes, I said yes, and meeting was so much nicer than before when the doctor is typing half the time. We can have a real conversation, nothing I say is missed, and later on the doctor can use AI to cross reference results or whatever else with our past discussions. That's win-win all around.

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

#179
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. I'm extra careful about dirty jokes or "grey morality" in video conferences and email. This is horrifying. Why do you feel the necessity to self-censor? What consequences do you anticipate?

Because the vast majority of things I self-censor I'm very careful about where and when I discuss it...

And I make a point of seeing the people I care about face to face.

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