This Week in Ranting
what is the line between infLAWencing and 'people are wrong on the Internet'
Hello friends in the computer,
Every time I see a LinkedIn post or other content start with “I asked Chat GPT…” my mind immediately goes here:
People seem to be more aggressively loud and wrong on the Internet lately. Granted, I have been doing some contract work and am thus at my desk seeing more hashtag content and this is the time of year I start to lose my mind a bit. So it could be just me but…I really don’t think it is.
For the past few weeks there’s been a big build up about DoNotPay (aka the <shines flashlight under chin> ROBOT LAWYER) and how it was going to use Chat GPT and an earpiece to help a self represented person in court.
Oh, and they would pay <extreme DR Evil voice> ONE MILLION DOLLARS for someone to do this at SCOTUS.
How can I describe my reaction without using profanity?
I can’t.
It was a bad idea. Worse than that, it was a dumb idea. And maybe worst of all, it most likely wasn’t actually going to change anything for the positive.
WELP. NEVER MIND.
Before rushing to defend anything, I strongly suggest people check this Techdirt article and the related Twitter threads by Kathryn Tewson.
(These are all threads of multiple tweets. Click on them.)
Start here
then here
then here
Well that is unfortunate.
And before anyone rushes to call me a Luddite or anti-innovation, I suggest you check yourself.
Any criticism I give is coming from a place of wanting things to change and be better, not joyfully hating on things like many of the law Twitter commentariat can be. I should be unemotional about it but honestly I’m very insulted when people try to act as if I’m like the latter. I do not have to blindly support all attempts at change because the status quo is so terrible.
Some ideas are bad. Or bad and potentially harmful. Or bad and potentially harmful and dumb.
Suck it up, buttercup.
So I’ve been watching this slow moving train wreck for a few weeks now and I’m sure if I were on Twitter I’d be tweeting up a storm, but instead I’ve succeeded in keeping it to some tightly controlled rants on Linkedin:
Free advice: try to understand a problem before you attempt to solve it.
More free advice: it’s immoral and unethical to experiment on vulnerable populations.
Aside from the obvious QA issues found by Tewson which give me pause as to the quality of the legal work product, my own poking around on the self help content (is that meant to be self help or just SEO juice?), the founder’s reaction to constructive criticism, including changing the TOS so that further testing can’t be done…
…I have to say that I’m really curious about how much informed consent the traffic court test subject actually had and if there’s any semblance of an IRB review for this.
For any test on humans- but especially in the legal realm - there needs to be an informed and good faith belief that the solution will work before sending out in the field to test. Non-working solutions aren’t solutions. They’re just distractions. Noise. Doing that hand waving thing that magicians do after a trick.
I’m not saying DNP hasn’t done good things in the past but all of this…it ain’t it, chief. All the past few weeks have done is destroy a lot of the credibility this company had with me and made me want to think twice before trusting it in the future.
There’s a decision that all innovators have to ask themselves: do you want to change how things are done or do you want to help people/make things better? Because they’re not always mutually inclusive, even in a broken system.
I mean…..a million dollars to defraud SCOTUS and that’s assuming you even get past all the well publicized barriers that would prevent it from happening? BFFR.
Anyway, speaking of not being on Twitter, I have to say I really am liking Mastodon. I’d love to see more people - people like YOU - use it. Once again, you are not only seeing people on your server, it’s like email and you can interact with anyone, so don’t overthink the server issue. Some law focused servers that you could join if for no other reason than it gives you a cool user name:
There’s also some GLAM/libraryland ones but I don’t have immediate links. You’re librarians…you can find them I’m sure.
And finally, just as a life update, this is me:
I’m not making an permanent decisions anytime soon and trying to embrace the opportunity I’ve been given, despite how much I loved my old job, to find how I can best serve the world as well as myself.
Honestly, I’ve had a couple demoralizing experiences in the past few months and I would give it even odds right now that I end up working in the legal field, buying some sheep and chickens and devoting my time to agribusiness, or finding some other type of thing that pays the bills while I used the rest of my time hanging out with my dad, possibly driving around in a van and solving mysteries.
Stay tuned for what that ends up being, although it won’t be anytime soon.
And now, for absolutely no reason whatsoever, I’m going to rewatch that Theranos documentary on HBOMax.
Take care,
Sarah
p.s. I promise to not clog your inbox as much next week.