Latest / Coopers' Code / Who Controls Speech When AI Moderates Everything?: This Month in Legal AI
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- 0:00These companies are now using AI to moderate all of this content.
- 0:05It'll be interesting to see how that plays out from a censorship
- 0:08standpoint, because before it was how many people can Facebook
- 0:12or TikTok employee to moderate what's going on.
- 0:14Now you have very sophisticated AI algorithms that are going to
- 0:18be unleashed on the uploads of the various content and how
- 0:25that's going to affect the big picture in terms of
- 0:27communication and what people are sharing.
- 0:29And what actually ends up in your feet, depending on what
- 0:33they think you're leaning is from a political or social
- 0:36standpoint. Howdy, and welcome to Cooper's
- 0:39Code. This is the AI issue and we're
- 0:43joined with Sherrod Milanfar and today, unfortunately, Marshall
- 0:47Cole's in trial. And for those of you who are
- 0:49keeping the score in terms of Marshall Cole being in trial,
- 0:51he's got a pattern. So he's either like ADA or
- 0:54somebody who doesn't settle out much.
- 0:55So if you're trying to stalk him and learn about him from from
- 0:58the handle in the podcast, know that you you may have a trial on
- 1:01your hands. So we wish him the best of luck
- 1:03there and look forward to joining when we return.
- 1:05So, Sherrod, how are you doing? I'm doing well, thanks.
- 1:09How are you? I'm, I'm, I'm doing well.
- 1:11It's nice to return to this after having a little bit of a
- 1:13of a holiday break. I wanted to kind of jump right
- 1:15into it. You had flagged something that
- 1:18it sounds like it could be very interesting to watch.
- 1:21And and that is February 9th, those who want to see Mark
- 1:26Zuckerberg take the stand in trial, get the opportunity.
- 1:30You you want to go into a little bit of of this story.
- 1:33Yeah. So basically the Daily Journal's
- 1:35report and other app that's have reported that their trials that
- 1:39are the social media addiction trials are getting ready to go
- 1:43down in Los Angeles. And Mark Zuckerberg is slated to
- 1:46testify in that case. And the case on the plaintiff
- 1:51side, it's more of the bellwether cases is being
- 1:53handled by the famed trial lawyer Mark Lanier.
- 1:57So it, you know, just as a human being and as an attorney, it
- 2:01would be great to watch that interaction.
- 2:04Apparently plaintiffs have asked the court to allow the
- 2:08proceedings to be recorded and the defense is indicating that
- 2:12they're going to file motions to essentially exclude any kind of
- 2:16cameras or recording in the courtroom.
- 2:19So it'll be interesting to see what the court does with that.
- 2:22Apparently, what app and TikTok or a Byte dance, I guess it is
- 2:29on one of the subsidiaries of TikTok have settled out, but
- 2:33Meta and Google are still in the case.
- 2:37So we'll see how that pans out. But Bytedance was the one that
- 2:42actually settled, apparently either today or last night,
- 2:44because the news came out this morning about that.
- 2:48That should be really interesting and and we don't
- 2:51generally see the CE OS of companies take taking the stand
- 2:56in cases like this. For those who are are following
- 2:59along, this is in LA Superior Court.
- 3:03I I don't know that it will be live streamed or if it's going
- 3:07to be on court TVI don't know if you know the answer.
- 3:10I don't, I mean sometimes CVN Courtroom View Network is
- 3:13involved, but they, I don't believe the court has ruled on
- 3:17it yet. So hopefully it's on CVN and you
- 3:20know, people can watch it there or on court TV because I think
- 3:25it'll be of interest to just the general public and the legal
- 3:28community as a whole. Yeah.
- 3:30The information that may come out in terms of what these large
- 3:38entities are doing, in terms of gathering data, in terms of
- 3:41tailoring content and and in terms of getting us addicted to
- 3:46the school, whether it be children or adults.
- 3:49At the same time having Montessori schools in their own
- 3:53homes that do not allow the use of any electronics by their own
- 3:58children. So that's an interesting
- 4:01juxtaposition in terms of, hey, you know, all these apps are
- 4:05great for your kids, but not mine, even though the amount of
- 4:10revenue that comes in is directly tied to all these
- 4:14eyeballs that are stuck on these apps for hours a day.
- 4:18As we're talking about that, there's also the consolidation
- 4:25within the media landscape overall.
- 4:28And, and here we're we're referring to TikTok and, and
- 4:31what's being done with TikTok as far as its ownership is
- 4:35concerned. Yeah.
- 4:36I mean, you look at the TikTok now, it's been taken over by the
- 4:42Allison LED investor group in the United States.
- 4:45So the Chinese interests presumably have been divested,
- 4:49and they're very aggressively moderating the content now.
- 4:54And a lot of creators and social media influencers are
- 4:57complaining that if they say something that's not consistent
- 5:01with the philosophies of Ellison and his cohort, that those
- 5:07pieces of content are being thwarted and they're not getting
- 5:10any views on it. So it'll be interesting to see
- 5:12how that plays out from a censorship standpoint and how
- 5:16these companies are now using AI to moderate all of this content.
- 5:21Because before it was how many people can Facebook or TikTok
- 5:25employee to moderate what's going on.
- 5:26Now you have very sophisticated the AI algorithms that are going
- 5:31to be unleashed on the uploads of the various content and how
- 5:37that's going to affect the big picture in terms of
- 5:39communication and what people are sharing and what actually
- 5:43ends up in your feed depending on what they think you're
- 5:47leaning is from a political or social standpoint.
- 5:50One of the things that I'm I'm hearing from you as a potential
- 5:52take away as far as how it relates to AI and the law is
- 5:57that as this consolidation continues, as this AI tool for
- 6:04moderation continues, we, we run the risk of having tremendous
- 6:09power held by very few over what was being seen by by everyone,
- 6:16including potential jurors. Absolutely.
- 6:20I mean it. It really is a matter of who
- 6:23gets to have a voice and the fact that there is basically the
- 6:29federal government is trying to tell the states you cannot
- 6:32legislate and put any safeguards on any of these of AI platforms.
- 6:39So what we don't understand is OK, what what are they creating
- 6:44right. Then somebody described this.
- 6:46I think we talked about that there in the ADC conference is a
- 6:49black box and it's being fed a tremendous amount of power.
- 6:53But yet they really don't understand what it can do.
- 6:57But on top of that, they're giving it now instead of letting
- 7:00it train and kind of be on a neutral plane, they're giving it
- 7:04essentially a very biased training where if I say
- 7:07something or you say something that doesn't necessarily line up
- 7:10with the owner's views, you're going to be called or, you know,
- 7:16labeled as an enemy of some sort.
- 7:19And that's very disturbing just from a place of living in this
- 7:24country that's very unique in its approach to having a voice
- 7:28and the 1st Amendment. Within the concerns of of having
- 7:33a voice privacy, your own awareness, have you done
- 7:37anything lately in terms of Google and and updated privacy
- 7:40policies around making sure that you're doing the best you can to
- 7:45protect yourself as we move forward with more and more
- 7:47consolidation? That's interesting because as
- 7:52you know, and anybody who's tried to read a privacy policy
- 7:57in online finds out that these are incredibly complex
- 8:01documents. And I think when it came to
- 8:03these online forms, I think it was Judge John Roberts who is
- 8:08quoted as saying that he doesn't even read these things when he
- 8:11clicks on them, right? So it's a problem because you're
- 8:15clicking on things, and that then may have consequences down
- 8:19the road. So Google sent out an e-mail
- 8:22saying we've changed our privacy policies, and I clicked on it
- 8:25just to look at it. It's this incredibly long
- 8:27document. So I'm like, all right, how can
- 8:29I digest this a little bit easier and figure out how I can
- 8:32delete my information if I choose to do so?
- 8:35So I took that document or link and I put it on notebook LM and
- 8:39I said give me a synopsis and I asked the questions and it can
- 8:44give you information about this is how you go about deleting
- 8:48your personal information. It's a five step process that it
- 8:51creates. So there are creative ways to
- 8:54use it to make it efficient for you to essentially counteract
- 8:58some of the things that we're seeing.
- 9:00Because presumably if you are able to delete your personal
- 9:03data out of Google, then that lessons some of the information
- 9:07that they have on you. And also, California just passed
- 9:10the law where you can go in and tell data brokers to delete your
- 9:15information, which is also a great thing in my opinion,
- 9:18because you should have a choice as to what information about you
- 9:22is being sold out there and how that's being used to market to
- 9:25you. And, you know, try to figure out
- 9:29how they can essentially get you to buy things.
- 9:32And for those who are interested in, in what Sharad just
- 9:34referenced, that is, is the drop DROP program through the state
- 9:40of California. And, and you can go on there
- 9:42and, and fill out the form to help reduce your overall profile
- 9:46and, and tell data brokers that that this is not something that
- 9:50they can have. Is that fair?
- 9:52Yes, that's that's exactly what it is.
- 9:54And also the other thing is, I think Apple just instituted a
- 9:58function on the on your iPhone where you can essentially have
- 10:02the person say who they are before your phone rings so that
- 10:06it would help reduce on some of them spam calls that we get on
- 10:12our phone at least 2-3 times a day minimum.
- 10:16That would be nice, wouldn't it? Yes, of course.
- 10:19Then there's that flip side. And I, I, I mean, this is not
- 10:22the AI episode, but this is something that I always, always
- 10:25worry about as a service oriented personal injury lawyer,
- 10:30which is it's that number that I don't recognize.
- 10:34It doesn't say spam. Is this somebody who's trying to
- 10:37trying to get a hold of me? And if I don't pick it up, what
- 10:40happens? Right.
- 10:41Yes, absolutely. And I think your family and my
- 10:44family can have a robust discussion about why we take
- 10:47calls at times where we should not be paying attention to our
- 10:52phone. But that is a real fear that we
- 10:54all have as personal entry lawyers.
- 10:56Yes, it'd be a different abbreviation than FOMO.
- 10:59You know, phobia, fear of personal injury, case loss.
- 11:04I don't, I don't know. But in the realm of of AI, we
- 11:11talked a little bit again before we got on about some of the the
- 11:15bigger moves that are going on in the legal AI marketplace.
- 11:19A lot of news this week about Harvey's acquisition of a
- 11:23another company called Hexis. For those who are, are not
- 11:26familiar, Harvey is, is one of the larger AI platforms in the
- 11:31legal space, primarily marketing to the larger entities.
- 11:35And I, I know that there are some personal energy firms that
- 11:37are using it on the whole, though they, they tend to be
- 11:40more of the, the big firm platform.
- 11:45And did you have any thoughts on on their acquisition on Hexis in
- 11:49terms of what it what it says in terms of Hexis being product
- 11:54demonstrations and video guides to help people learn how to use
- 11:57products? My only observation is that
- 12:00basically consolidation seems to be the consistent pattern with
- 12:06companies and private equity, right?
- 12:08It's a you, we're seeing it in the space of, you know, Netflix
- 12:12wanting to buy other companies and Allison wanting to buy all
- 12:15these media companies. And the question is at some
- 12:19point is there going to be the return on investment?
- 12:24Is it really going to be there? Because the amounts of money
- 12:27that's that are being put on the table for some of these things,
- 12:30you just kind of scratch your head and say, wow, like, how did
- 12:33you calculate the valuation on these things?
- 12:37And that then leaves to leads into the whole issue about the,
- 12:41you know, AI bubble and whether it's real or whether it's not.
- 12:45But again, hopefully somebody at Harvey had a plan and understood
- 12:50exactly what they were acquiring and why they were acquiring it
- 12:53because again, you know, having to go to my boss and tell them
- 12:57we're spending this much money, there better be a good why and a
- 13:01strategic plan on the return on that investment.
- 13:04I think some of the things that, that, that caught my attention
- 13:07in, in this particular deal was, was Harvey's current $8 billion
- 13:12valuation in terms of its last funding round.
- 13:15And, and I had forgotten, but Andreessen Horowitz is, is one
- 13:19of the VCs backing it. And, and that's a, that's AVC
- 13:22backer who's known for making wise decisions in terms of what
- 13:25they've invested in. So when you, when you see that
- 13:29valuation, when you see the backing for me, leads me to
- 13:33believe that this is potentially going somewhere.
- 13:35The the flip side of that is that's a huge valuation and and
- 13:41while there is a fair amount of money in the legal marketplace,
- 13:46is the amount of money that's being generated from law firms
- 13:51likely to justify that that kind of an expenditure?
- 13:55The question really is going to be whether this is being looked
- 13:59at as something that's essentially an investment that's
- 14:02going to go directly to law firms.
- 14:04Or is this private equity playing their card in setting up
- 14:09systems that's going to allow them in markets such as Arizona,
- 14:13where they're allowed to own law firms without attorney owners,
- 14:17to undercut the pricing model of the large firms that exist in
- 14:23those markets. And we've seen, you know, 30
- 14:26attorney groups leaving their traditional firms to go to firms
- 14:30like KPMG and establish these, you know, pseudo law firms that
- 14:36operate in, you know, Arizona and other places.
- 14:39But the question they are going to have to ask themselves is at
- 14:42some point once you set this thing up, are they going to say,
- 14:45well, you know what, we don't really need you.
- 14:47We can pay some junior associates and Harvey's going to
- 14:50run the show. And if that's the play, then
- 14:53there's potentially a significant upswing that, you
- 14:56know they can take advantage of in terms of pulling revenue away
- 14:59from these traditional firms. I think you were the one who,
- 15:02who pointed out long, long ago to me, you know, eons ago in the
- 15:07world of AI, like 6 months ago, that if, if you have AAI tool
- 15:16that say costs $50,000 a year, but it allows you to, to treat
- 15:22it like a junior associate or a junior paralegal and, and, and,
- 15:27and be the equivalent of, of multiples of those, then you're,
- 15:30you're actually are looking at a cost savings overall.
- 15:32Right. That's the analysis that they
- 15:35have to make, right. And when you look at a, you
- 15:38know, these companies that are coming in to undercut the large
- 15:42defense firms or the traditional large firms, they're looking at
- 15:46it from the business perspective of we can do this in a way
- 15:49that's cheaper for you and paying for Harvey at whatever,
- 15:53you know, but probably, you know, 4 or $500 a month for that
- 15:57service. And to cut out an attorney whose
- 16:00salary is significantly higher than that, that's something
- 16:04they're going to tell their clients.
- 16:05And then the clients are going to look at it and say, well,
- 16:08this is a huge savings on defense or mergers and
- 16:12acquisitions or whatever. And that could have a
- 16:15significant ripple effect in the industry.
- 16:18Now, you're still going to have to have humans who are going to
- 16:21review things that we, as we've discussed before.
- 16:24But again, if that can eliminate the first draft and get you to a
- 16:30point where you can eliminate two or three people on your
- 16:33team, that's a huge savings that they're, they're going to force
- 16:37that, you know, firms and companies to go into.
- 16:41We had probably about a month and a half since we last got
- 16:44together. Are are there things that you've
- 16:46been playing around in the interim that have been making
- 16:49you happy, making you interested, whether that be in
- 16:51the field of prompting or other other tools, other choice?
- 16:56Mostly it it seems to me that all these AI systems are getting
- 17:00better and the more creative we are, the better we're going to
- 17:04be able to utilize them. So again, this kind of an old
- 17:08theme, but the, you know, keep looking at the different AI
- 17:12systems like notebook LM has certain utilities and they're
- 17:16now adding more topics to it where you can do the
- 17:21infographics and slide decks and the podcast feature now has it.
- 17:28So if let's say you and I are talking, if we could have a
- 17:31caller call in and ask a question and you'll adapt the
- 17:35podcast based on the real time question that's coming in.
- 17:38I mean, these are things that have happened in the last six
- 17:41months. So as imperfect as these systems
- 17:45are, where you should be very vigilant and to, you know, make
- 17:49sure that you're not sending anything out the door without,
- 17:51you know, human eyes checking them, They're improving
- 17:55significantly and making things so that we can be more
- 17:59efficient. And as we've talked about, you
- 18:01know, myself having a smaller firm, we're able to stand up to
- 18:05much larger firms because we're able to look at the big picture
- 18:09and utilize various technologies that are available to streamline
- 18:12our our approach. In that vein, and, and, and if
- 18:16I've asked you this in the past on air and, and, and you've
- 18:19answered already, forgive me, but do you use copilot?
- 18:24And, and by copilot, I'm referring to Microsoft's product
- 18:28that it is embedded into Office outlook other places.
- 18:34Is that something that you felt comfortable turning on and, and,
- 18:37and talking back to you or is or is it something that you've left
- 18:39alone for now given some of the privacy concerns?
- 18:41I haven't utilized that in the sense of looking at specific
- 18:45case related information, but what I've used is, you know, we
- 18:52have Cleo and it has an AI component to it.
- 18:55So I've used that. And then Anthropics Claude is
- 18:59able to do what's called projects, which are very useful
- 19:03because you can put some information in there and then
- 19:06you can use that as an example. So if we have things that we
- 19:09want to utilize and use as templates, those are things that
- 19:15we can feed into it and then it can do what it needs to do.
- 19:18And based on my research on it is the most secure out of the
- 19:22other Enterprise Products that are available.
- 19:25So it makes it so that it's doing a better job of being
- 19:30consistent with what we want based on the information that
- 19:33we're feeding it. And it's in a closed loop, not
- 19:35training the larger model. Simultaneous to that,
- 19:39independent of whether it is closed loop or or keep your data
- 19:43quiet. Google has really been making a
- 19:47push lately with Gemini. When you open Chrome, when you
- 19:51use other tools, it it definitely is getting in your
- 19:54face in terms of trying to be there as a resource for you.
- 19:57Is is that something that you've found is useful in a legal
- 20:01space? Has that impacted you at all?
- 20:03I know that what Google is doing is basically trying to make
- 20:07their, you know, search engine an AI search engine, right?
- 20:10I mean, that's, I mean, they would be dumb not to do it from
- 20:15a legal standpoint. I haven't really gotten into it
- 20:19because obviously there's some concerns like we're not going to
- 20:22put client information in in there.
- 20:25But it does have utility in the sense that, you know, you have a
- 20:29Casey has a publicly traded company.
- 20:31You can ask them, Gemini, to give you a deep dive research
- 20:36paper on that company's finances.
- 20:39And you know, I, we, I did that 2 days ago on a case that we
- 20:43have that's a wrongful death case and the companies publicly
- 20:46trade it. So when we ran the company, it
- 20:49was clear that despite their assertions that, oh, you know,
- 20:53we don't have that much money, they have 300 million in cash on
- 20:56hand. And they're, they're, they're
- 20:59more than able to, you know, essentially cover the case and
- 21:02their insurance becomes irrelevant.
- 21:04So for us as legal consumers, knowing which particular and,
- 21:12you know, AI engine to use I think is important because it'll
- 21:16provide you with better information where, I'm not sure
- 21:20if I went to ChatGPT, I would have gotten the same sort of
- 21:24research on it, but maybe, you know, somebody else has done it.
- 21:27And I figured Gemini was the most powerful engine when it
- 21:32comes to searching publicly available information about a
- 21:36publicly traded company. That makes a lot of sense as we
- 21:39talk about some of the larger companies grabbing your crystal
- 21:43ball. Do you have any prediction in,
- 21:45in the legal world as to whether the Elon Musk versus open AI
- 21:49suit will actually get to trial? I, I know it, it passed the,
- 21:52the, the motion to dismiss hurdle and and so they get they,
- 21:56they get the opportunity of trials.
- 21:58You think we'll actually get there?
- 22:00You know, I, I, I think I have to put my mediator hat on that
- 22:03one on for that one. But based on the animosity that
- 22:08I've seen between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, if, if it goes to
- 22:14trial and I think it's very likely it's going to be in a
- 22:17very entertaining trial. So I would love to see a
- 22:20televised so we can see what these guys have to say and how
- 22:24they're going to prove their case against each other.
- 22:27Yeah. Well, and, and kind of we, we
- 22:30talk I think a little bit at the beginning of the case of the
- 22:32opportunity to see certain people, you know, Mark
- 22:35Zuckerberg in trial. We've got the potential of, of
- 22:38seeing some, some big people in trial in, in the coming year
- 22:43should be very interesting just from the spectator side of the
- 22:46law and, and seeing what people have to say and, and where
- 22:49things go. Well, and I think that kind of
- 22:52dovetails into this whole issue of what's happening in AI in
- 22:56terms of autonomous driving, right?
- 22:58With these rideshare services and specifically Uber attempting
- 23:03to essentially strip consumers of their rights to pursue
- 23:08litigation when they're injured and simultaneously trying to get
- 23:13rid of their drivers, which means that they're trying to
- 23:16insulate themselves from liability caused by their
- 23:22imperfect driving systems that are going to be run by their
- 23:27AIS. And that creates product
- 23:29liability issues. It creates access to justice
- 23:32issues. And as human beings and
- 23:34consumers, we have to ask ourselves, how could we possibly
- 23:37blindly say, yeah, you know what, Uber, you're never going
- 23:40to have any liability if your car hits and kills a child in
- 23:44the in the crosswalk. And it just, it's just amazing
- 23:48to me that a company like that would just attempt to even pass
- 23:52that kind of legislation because it's just so unconscionable on
- 23:55its face. We're seeing some unconscionable
- 23:59things happening in this world right now, aren't we?
- 24:02Yeah, a little bit. A little bit.
- 24:04That's an understatement. Yeah.
- 24:06Well, anything else you think we should we should touch on in the
- 24:09in the the tech episode? I don't remember if we talked
- 24:12about this before, but the American Arbitration Association
- 24:15has now released an AI arbitrator for.
- 24:19Oh, this is news to me. Now this is interesting.
- 24:22So they've released a module that's an AI arbitrator and had
- 24:27believe it's marketed as an arbitrator for like construction
- 24:32defect type cases. And that's something that
- 24:36they're trying to push out there.
- 24:37But I suspect, you know, a lot of the carriers, they do a lot
- 24:40of arbitrations between themselves in behind the scenes
- 24:44with cases that they pay out on and stuff.
- 24:47So maybe that'll take off there. But to me, it's just amazing
- 24:51that you would just remove the human out of it and you would
- 24:54want an AI arbitrator to arbitrate your case.
- 24:57I I don't know who would actually submit to that, but
- 25:01that's a product that they just released a few months ago.
- 25:04Just it sounds like the equivalent of a digital table
- 25:07saw splitting the baby. The parallel piece of that seems
- 25:13like if that was a tool that was going to be regularly used, that
- 25:17you'd see if you could try to model it to see what your
- 25:19outcome would be so that you know what your best alternative
- 25:23to a negotiated outcome is. There is a paper I think that
- 25:27came out from Columbia University that did that.
- 25:30And their models clearly were wrong in their approach.
- 25:35And they actually, I think it was Grok, they asked and
- 25:38initially Grok said this case is worth like $25 million.
- 25:42And then later on when they asked the additional questions
- 25:46said, oh, on second thought it's $2,000,000.
- 25:49That's a pretty large swing to consider in terms of the
- 25:55results. And again, there is a reason we
- 25:59go to trial is that that human piece of it is something that's
- 26:03going to be very difficult for them to emulate in terms of AI
- 26:07analysis that could it give you some idea of what would work and
- 26:12what wouldn't work? Probably.
- 26:13But is it definitive? I doubt it.
- 26:17Yeah, that's that's fascinating for all you listening out there.
- 26:20If you are seeing anything new or cool that you want to bring
- 26:24to our attention, if you are using the arbitration AI and get
- 26:29outcomes, we'd love to hear what those are.
- 26:31And otherwise if you're listening and you like what
- 26:34we're doing, please give us a five star review on your
- 26:36platform of choice to all of you do and justice out there.
- 26:40Happy hunting.