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John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying
51–60 of 322 posts
Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying
#52Expert witnesses is kinda crazy in this country. One of the most famous cases had to be the father wrongfully executed because of it[0].
Law enforcement are also trained to talk about their years of experience and how they're an expert when giving testimony regardless of facts and juries love it.
Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying
#53Interesting rant on expert witnesses. Mostly interesting because I've done some expert witness testimony and found it fascinating. I completely resonate with John's issue with the expert's testimony and his understanding of it. John mentioned that their own expert testified differently but he didn't say whether or not their lawyers attempted to impeach their expert with cross examination. In the two cases I participa…
> In the limit it means "you read this code, understood how it worked, and wrote new code that could do the same function." You can stretch that to cover anything you have ever seen. Which is sad. I thought the industry adopted "clean room" techniques decades ago to avoid this kind of appearance of impropriety. It's more expensive, sure, but isn't eliminating legal risk something that typically gets paid for?
This particular point worries me. Are we now not going to be able to make a clean room re-implementation of concept? Do we need to worry about our previous employer suing us because we are successful?
Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying
#54I suppose many weird things happen in $500m cases, but it'd be really unusual to have trial testimony sealed against the agreement of the parties. Pretrial reports and depositions, sure. Media was apparently there reporting during the expert's trial testimony, and I'd be surprised if they cannot buy a transcript from the court reporter. (http://uploadvr.com/court-oculus-zenimax-last-day/)
A quick look at the docket shows the expert witness at issue is likely to be David Dobkin of Princeton. That name appears on the docket and in media reports. Let me know if that violates HN norms, but expert witness trial testimony is part of the public, permanent record in almost every case. If a witness is excluded for using unreliable methods, his or her value as an expert is ... diminished.
Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying
#55Interesting rant on expert witnesses. Mostly interesting because I've done some expert witness testimony and found it fascinating. I completely resonate with John's issue with the expert's testimony and his understanding of it. John mentioned that their own expert testified differently but he didn't say whether or not their lawyers attempted to impeach their expert with cross examination. In the two cases I participa…
Cleary with a lot of money on the line from one side or the other, either side can likely find a 'expert witness' who is credentialed and willing to say what they want. At least that's true in a lot of cases. Regardless of how this handled in court, it's an issue. How is a jury built of non-experts to handle such a situation? In this case they clearly believed one side's testimony over the other, against what one could reasonably argue was sound judgement on the issue. Expert witness testimony is more about theater, performance, and credibility than it is on the actual technical matter.
Until we put in place a system where an expert witness is more accountable to the court than a client, we will continue to have this problem.
Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a very common argument against juries, and I think it's one of the most powerful. Of course if you start to fill a jury with people competent in the area being judged, you run different risks, such as bias within the field. And it's still not clear that it would help with delivering justice. But if we take the idea of a jury to be about judging by one's peers, it should be patently clear (heh) that the jury o…
> Of course if you start to fill a jury with people competent in the area being judged, you run different risks, such as bias within the field. A bigger problem is defining field boundaries and determine who gets to judge qualifications, both of which introduce points at which biases can be introduced systematically.
I'd settle for not actively weeding out experts as we do in the current voir dire process.
Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying
#57"The expert witness circuit is surely tempting for many academics, since a distinguished expert can get paid $600+ an hour to prepare a weighty report that supports a lawyer’s case. I don’t have any issue with that, but testifying in court as an expert should be as much a part of your permanent public record as the journal papers you publish. In many cases, the consequences are significant. There should be a danger t…
If the "expert witness" is either lying (in court) or incompetent, shouldn't there be consequences to their professional reputation? Or do you think such things should be consequence-free?
Perjury is already a crime. What further consequences are warranted?
Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying
#58Interesting rant on expert witnesses. Mostly interesting because I've done some expert witness testimony and found it fascinating. I completely resonate with John's issue with the expert's testimony and his understanding of it. John mentioned that their own expert testified differently but he didn't say whether or not their lawyers attempted to impeach their expert with cross examination. In the two cases I participa…
> In a jury trial I can imagine that having the jury understand your testimony is probably the most challenging.
What I've seen from the sidelines is that what you want in an expert is someone who make your point, which has more to do with assertiveness than competence, and the credentials to back it up but who can't delve into the topic too deeply because information that the jury doesn't understand is an attack surface that defense attorneys can use to create doubt.
I imagine the rules are a little different in civil litigation where both sides are likely to have experts.
Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
No matter how removed someone is from your field of expertise you should be able to consisely make a case for why you aren't at fault and why. You should also be able to demonstrate using basic logic that the simplest components of two source trees (something that is extremely basic) can show resemblance to another extremely basic component. For example the similarity of example code. How many example source files ha…
Why? Why is there an assumption that you can explain anything to anyone? There is no law of nature stating that the maximum complexity anyone can invent is smaller than the complexity the average person can understand.
My personal impression is that when people of average intelligence can't understand something is because the concepts that make that thing are outside their expertise, not because they are not able to. They are missing the parts, so, understanding the total is impossible.
People of exceptional intelligence is able to learn new things and think through a problems easily, but what makes a real difference is if you already own the building blocks of the new idea or not. A transpiration vs. inspiration kind of thing.
Anyway, I think the argument is that you should be judge by average and impartial persons (a jury or a judge) because, otherwise, you are not in a egalitarian society.
Somebody could argue that an egalitarian society is not efficient, but history teach us where that finish: there is always people on the ready to declare themselves above the others. So we have to aim to some kind of balance.
Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying
#60I don't have the evidence so I can't make a judgement about whether Zenimax or Carmack is in the wrong here, but this does point out something strange in our court system and that is where a "jury of peers" which translates to normal people with little to no knowledge of the underlying subject matter. As our society becomes more specialized it seems a bit absurd to have people make judgements mostly based on how well…
This is a very common argument against juries, and I think it's one of the most powerful. Of course if you start to fill a jury with people competent in the area being judged, you run different risks, such as bias within the field. And it's still not clear that it would help with delivering justice. But if we take the idea of a jury to be about judging by one's peers, it should be patently clear (heh) that the jury o…
I once espoused a similar opinion, but have since changed my mind.
I'm a physicist, and once expressed to a judge I had met on the trail that I wished I could be judged by my academic peers. It was my belief that they would be more receptive to logical argument, understanding in their analysis, and more committed to fundamental principles. The judge was visibly surprised, but said little.
What later changed my mind was the realization that our society is a human one, and that humanity has a huge spectrum of experience. A group of physicists may not understand something about the world that others do. Furthermore, any select group of citizens will differ in belief somewhat from the interests of society at large.
But do I want educated and principled jurors on any jury that judges me, ones with enough fortitude to mis-trial a jury or nullify a law if that's what is required? Damn straight.
If the notion that your citizen-peers might not be informed troubles you, take time to help others form informed opinions.