Gen AI Makes Legal Action Cheap – and Companies Need to Prepare • Hacker News Board

Re: Gen AI Makes Legal Action Cheap – and Companies Need to Prepare

#81

Post by gamblor956 » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 6:20 PM UTC

beej71 wrote: post #16

seydor wrote: post #5

Between the lines it seems the legal professions depend on strong barriers to entry to justify their high prices, and this is threatening them more than the companies.

Here's a story from my divorce 25 years ago. We were having an easy divorce, and so we used Nolo press to get it done. But it was difficult to know what forms actually had to be filed in our case. So we went to the clerk, and said, out of all these forms, which ones do we have to file? And the clerk said that they couldn't tell us because that would be offering legal advice. The lawyers had gotten laws passed prevent…

The law does not actually prohibit the clerk from telling you what forms you need to give him to finalize an uncontested divorce in any state in this country. If it was against the law, the Nolo books you used wouldn't exist.

The clerk wasn't going to tell you which forms you needed to give him, because if the divorce had been messed up by you giving him the wrong forms on his advice, he could have been sued for the financial losses you and your ex-spouse incurred.

But it's convenient to blame it on the lawyers...

Re: Gen AI Makes Legal Action Cheap – and Companies Need to Prepare

#82

Post by carapace » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 6:30 PM UTC

visarga wrote: post #52

I often read comments where people doubt there will be much work left after AGI. I think on the contrary, it will keep us busy, even busier than before. The moment the road widens, more cars fill it up to the brim. Will lawyers lose their jobs? Looks like the opposite trend is happening. With each capability unlocked, we got more work not less. Remember that reminder about the fate of horses after the automobile was…

> The moment the road widens, more cars fill it up to the brim.

Jevon's Paradox is not a law of nature.

- - - -

Mark Miller pointed out, "A Computer's Perspective on Moore's Law: Humans are getting more expensive at an exponential rate."

The explosion of AI means that humans are getting more valuable, but only for doing things that only humans (not AI) can do.

Re: Gen AI Makes Legal Action Cheap – and Companies Need to Prepare

#83

Post by gamblor956 » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 6:31 PM UTC

simonw wrote: post #12

This looks like yet another example of the thing where LLMs disrupt processes which are designed to limit engagement through requiring tedious long-form writing using jargon that is not available to most people. On the one hand this is great - real “democratization” of how society works. But it’s going to break a whole lot of things in the short term while these processes are redesigned for this new world. And the fi…

Legal filings don't require special jargon. Most lawyers just use jargon because they know exactly what the jargon means and how a judge will interpret it. In a lot of cases, they use the jargon simply because its what they learned in law school from professors who learned it from professors who learned it from professors who learned it when the jargon was still required.

A layperson can file their own lawsuit, and as long as they satisfy the requirements of the law outlining the necessary elements of the lawsuit, they don't need any jargon or special language. (Formatting is a court-imposed requirement; that does not come from the lawyers.)

Access to the courts is limited by imposing filing fees. An LLM like this won't change that; if anything the most likely response is to increase filing fees.

Re: Gen AI Makes Legal Action Cheap – and Companies Need to Prepare

#84

Post by 39896880 » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 6:51 PM UTC

exegete wrote: post #62

intended wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? It will be the exact opposite - the hard part is always a human looking at this, unless we want verdicts done by machines as well. This is most like going to gum up the courts.

I do think it’s an arms race where in many instances legal filing will be aided by AI and then the other party will also use AI to synthesize and summarize the filings or do similar analysis. The filings themselves will not actually be written or read by real human beings

Reminds me of an episode of Star Trek: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon_(...

Re: Gen AI Makes Legal Action Cheap – and Companies Need to Prepare

#85

Post by drdaeman » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 7:09 PM UTC

hedora wrote: post #71

ryandrake wrote: post #17

If suing became an ultra-easy one-click activity, I can see two things coming: 1. maybe that would force us to shape up our tort laws a little so that not everything under the sun was actionable and 2. maybe people and companies would stop misbehaving so much because they knew there was no longer a burden to suing them. A combination of 1 and 2 sound like a great outcome.

I’ve been unlucky enough to have good reason to sue a few times in the last few years. The courts are essentially inaccessible to 99% of the population. You can go to small claims court where the limit for damages is $12,500 in California (less than a half year’s rent around here), or you can hire a lawyer and pay $50-100K minimum before the trial even starts (on both sides). The upshot is that I’m out around $100K (…

> or you can hire a lawyer and pay $50-100K minimum before the trial even starts

What are those lawyers doing that’s worth so much, and that one cannot do themselves if they have time and mental capacity for it?

I don’t know about courts (though I managed my way through a simple divorce case without any need for a lawyer), but e.g. immigration attorneys are typically drastically overpriced for the services they provide - and I’ve dealt with six immigration events (two people, two countries, four events obtaining new residencies and two renewals, all six sharing a lot but being different situations under different clauses - lottery, income, marriage, family reunion) without any significant issues. Contrary to every single lawyer it wasn’t some rocket science - just stuff to learn, forms to fill and protocols to follow. And this makes me wonder if legal is actually as inaccessible and as risky to a layman as lawyers picture it…

Re: Gen AI Makes Legal Action Cheap – and Companies Need to Prepare

#86

Post by dogmayor » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 7:14 PM UTC

This makes little sense. Commenting on a proposed rule and filing a lawsuit are two entirely different tasks and two entirely different processes. That people were able to submit more comments and do so in an easier manner says nothing about broader "legal risk" to corporations.

And as you can see, the authors are co-founders of some related startup and this article is nothing more than a weak pitch.

Re: Gen AI Makes Legal Action Cheap – and Companies Need to Prepare

#87

Post by ipython » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 7:14 PM UTC

carapace wrote: post #82

visarga wrote: post #52

I often read comments where people doubt there will be much work left after AGI. I think on the contrary, it will keep us busy, even busier than before. The moment the road widens, more cars fill it up to the brim. Will lawyers lose their jobs? Looks like the opposite trend is happening. With each capability unlocked, we got more work not less. Remember that reminder about the fate of horses after the automobile was…

> The moment the road widens, more cars fill it up to the brim. Jevon's Paradox is not a law of nature. - - - - Mark Miller pointed out, "A Computer's Perspective on Moore's Law: Humans are getting more expensive at an exponential rate." The explosion of AI means that humans are getting more valuable, but only for doing things that only humans (not AI) can do.

What’s interesting in that statement is that modern llms are largely built off… reinforcement learning from low paid humans.

Re: Gen AI Makes Legal Action Cheap – and Companies Need to Prepare

#88

Post by rafterydj » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 7:18 PM UTC

drdaeman wrote: post #85

hedora wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been unlucky enough to have good reason to sue a few times in the last few years. The courts are essentially inaccessible to 99% of the population. You can go to small claims court where the limit for damages is $12,500 in California (less than a half year’s rent around here), or you can hire a lawyer and pay $50-100K minimum before the trial even starts (on both sides). The upshot is that I’m out around $100K (…

> or you can hire a lawyer and pay $50-100K minimum before the trial even starts What are those lawyers doing that’s worth so much, and that one cannot do themselves if they have time and mental capacity for it? I don’t know about courts (though I managed my way through a simple divorce case without any need for a lawyer), but e.g. immigration attorneys are typically drastically overpriced for the services they provi…

This is like stating, "What are software engineers doing that's worth so much? There's plenty of free code courses online."

It reminds me of the old story of the plumber being called to a house that's leaking water out of a pipe, and the plumber looks around, finds one valve and gives it a half turn, and then writes a bill for 100$. The home owner is outraged he is charging so much for just a couple of minutes, and the plumber responds, "You aren't paying me to turn a valve, you are paying me to know which valve to turn."

Sure you could learn the law and represent yourself, but you can't expect results to be as good as anyone who practices law might do. It's a knowledge field, and experience matters.

Re: Gen AI Makes Legal Action Cheap – and Companies Need to Prepare

#89

Post by bee_rider » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 7:19 PM UTC

campbel wrote: post #44

dartos wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> everything under the sun was actionable Not everything (in the US at least) is actionable, but you still need someone to review each suit and determine whether or not to throw it out.

seems reasonable to add an initial cost burden to the filer then, to pay for the review, especially if they are filing a lot of suits. Say first 10 suits per year are free, but then you need to get on the premium plan :D

If the goal is to disincentivize all people from making frivolous lawsuits, that cost burden sharing should probably be proportional to the person’s free resources somehow. A percentage of wealth or income or something like that.

Re: Gen AI Makes Legal Action Cheap – and Companies Need to Prepare

#90

Post by ChuckMcM » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 7:19 PM UTC

The summary seems to be; That you can't obfuscate with words like you used to and normal bureaucratic hurdles are less effective with LLM generators?

Depending on how badly these things get the summaries wrong it could certainly help with people trying to understand what their government is doing. I'd love to be able to download the contents of a bill from the Federal Register and have an accurate summary of all of the things it changes and how.