Detangle: AI-generated summaries of legal docs • Hacker News Board

Re: Detangle: AI-generated summaries of legal docs

#21

Post by simonista » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:21 PM UTC

Shpigford wrote: post #2

Detangle gives you AI-generated summaries of your legal docs so you can understand what you're signing. Here's the YC SAFE, for example: https://detangle.ai/examples/yc-safe

I'm excited to see where this goes because I think it is a cool application of AI. That said, two of the first three paragraph summaries are wrong in this example:

> [Investor Name] gave [Company Name] the right to certain shares of its Capital Stock in exchange for [Amount] on [Date].

This is backwards

> The Post-Money Valuation Cap is a number that is written in Section 2.

This isn't true, the number is here, "additional defined terms" are later.

Re: Detangle: AI-generated summaries of legal docs

#22

Post by traceroute66 » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:22 PM UTC

fellerts wrote: post #11

Who is the target audience for something like this? I'm not sure anybody is going to pay to have Apple's ToS simplified before clicking "agree". On the other hand, if you are squinting at a contract that actually matters, I don't think a service like this gives sufficient understanding of what all that legalese would actually mean if shit hits the fan. For example, changing the applicable law in a contract can yield…

> You say "The summaries are to help inform conversations with actual lawyers", but would a lawyer give a rats ass about a layman's interpretation of an AI-backed translation of a legal doc

Indeed.

We all know what the medical profession quite rightly thinks about patients who turn up having (supposedly) self-diagnosed themselves with the help of Doctor Google.

Re: Detangle: AI-generated summaries of legal docs

#23

Post by traceroute66 » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:28 PM UTC

Shpigford wrote: post #16

oa335 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, I would still want a lawyer to take a look or anything of importance.

I also would want a lawyer to take a look. Hence the note saying to talk to a lawyer. ;) The reality is, even knowing what to ask a lawyer can be difficult and it's not economically viable to ask a lawyer to summarize a 100-page legal document into text you can wrap your head around. Detangle just helps give some clarity so that you can further a conversation with a lawyer, or even just ask for clarification from the…

> even knowing what to ask a lawyer can be difficult

That's the lawyer's job, to guide you through ! If they're not doing that, then find a different lawyer.

The whole point is we are talking about legal document review here.

Reviewing legal documents necessarily involves an active discussion with a lawyer, it is not something you can turn up with pre-prepared questions for.

Re: Detangle: AI-generated summaries of legal docs

#24

Post by drbwaa » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:29 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #8

Given how confident AI can be when it's incorrect, it feels like a bit of a problem to use AI with legal docs, since you can't really trust it to be correct (and the cost of being incorrect may be absurdly high).

Given how _poorly written_ a lot of real legal documents are, I would definitely not trust any current AI to summarize it accurately. How would it handle documents where terms or clauses are in conflict, or any other situation where a close-reading human would have to step back and say "okay, this is _semantically_ impossible?"

I could see a tool like this being valuable as an outline generator for long documents, but I would be very reluctant to believe any statements it makes about the actual legal effects.

Re: Detangle: AI-generated summaries of legal docs

#25

Post by tasseff » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:34 PM UTC

Can this idea be turned on its head to engineer adversarial legal language that sounds reasonable but actually has terrible implications for the signee?

Re: Detangle: AI-generated summaries of legal docs

#26

Post by jchw » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:34 PM UTC

Shpigford wrote: post #16

oa335 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, I would still want a lawyer to take a look or anything of importance.

I also would want a lawyer to take a look. Hence the note saying to talk to a lawyer. ;) The reality is, even knowing what to ask a lawyer can be difficult and it's not economically viable to ask a lawyer to summarize a 100-page legal document into text you can wrap your head around. Detangle just helps give some clarity so that you can further a conversation with a lawyer, or even just ask for clarification from the…

Question: how much would it cost to consult a lawyer about a 100 page document? How does one even go about doing something like this? I've never really needed to do that, so I'm genuinely curious.

Re: Detangle: AI-generated summaries of legal docs

#27

Post by CSMastermind » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:35 PM UTC

drbwaa wrote: post #24

falcolas wrote: post #8

Given how confident AI can be when it's incorrect, it feels like a bit of a problem to use AI with legal docs, since you can't really trust it to be correct (and the cost of being incorrect may be absurdly high).

Given how _poorly written_ a lot of real legal documents are, I would definitely not trust any current AI to summarize it accurately. How would it handle documents where terms or clauses are in conflict, or any other situation where a close-reading human would have to step back and say "okay, this is _semantically_ impossible?" I could see a tool like this being valuable as an outline generator for long documents, bu…

I could see this being useful as a tool that scans legal documents in bulk like Terms of Service and looks for red flags that simple keyword searches would miss.

Re: Detangle: AI-generated summaries of legal docs

#28

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:35 PM UTC

tasseff wrote: post #25

Can this idea be turned on its head to engineer adversarial legal language that sounds reasonable but actually has terrible implications for the signee?

[deleted]

Re: Detangle: AI-generated summaries of legal docs

#29

Post by drbwaa » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:38 PM UTC

traceroute66 wrote: post #23

Shpigford wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also would want a lawyer to take a look. Hence the note saying to talk to a lawyer. ;) The reality is, even knowing what to ask a lawyer can be difficult and it's not economically viable to ask a lawyer to summarize a 100-page legal document into text you can wrap your head around. Detangle just helps give some clarity so that you can further a conversation with a lawyer, or even just ask for clarification from the…

> even knowing what to ask a lawyer can be difficult That's the lawyer's job, to guide you through ! If they're not doing that, then find a different lawyer. The whole point is we are talking about legal document review here. Reviewing legal documents necessarily involves an active discussion with a lawyer, it is not something you can turn up with pre-prepared questions for.

> That's the lawyer's job, to guide you through ! If they're not doing that, then find a different lawyer.

Yes! And if you happen to know that, and have a good lawyer, then you're all set. But a hell of a lot of lawyers won't volunteer to do this, or aren't competent enough to have this conversation productively with a layperson, and most people don't know to ask for it.

I have my doubts as to the practicality, but a tool that could summarize and then prompt laypeople go to their lawyer to start that discussion seems like it could definitely have value. I suspect most people interested in this tool may already be knowledgeable enough to ask for a walkthrough anyway, but you could imagine implementations where the summary is presented directly, and could guide more people toward the help they need.

Re: Detangle: AI-generated summaries of legal docs

#30

Post by traceroute66 » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:41 PM UTC

drbwaa wrote: post #29

traceroute66 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> even knowing what to ask a lawyer can be difficult That's the lawyer's job, to guide you through ! If they're not doing that, then find a different lawyer. The whole point is we are talking about legal document review here. Reviewing legal documents necessarily involves an active discussion with a lawyer, it is not something you can turn up with pre-prepared questions for.

> That's the lawyer's job, to guide you through ! If they're not doing that, then find a different lawyer. Yes! And if you happen to know that, and have a good lawyer, then you're all set. But a hell of a lot of lawyers won't volunteer to do this, or aren't competent enough to have this conversation productively with a layperson, and most people don't know to ask for it. I have my doubts as to the practicality, but a…

> competent enough to have this conversation productively with a layperson

HUH ? That is literally their job !

Legal document review is bread and butter for lawyers.

Having productive conversations with laypeople is what lawyers do all day every day.

I really don't get your point.

If a lawyer is unable to have a productive conversation with a layperson about a legal document, then they need to be stripped of their qualifications.