081 | Sanctions

In today’s Brainyacts we:

1. celebrate referrals

2. get an AI Canon (deep resources on all things AI)

3. wince as a lawyer faces sanctions for using ChatGPT to cite cases

4. see how self-represented litigants are relying on ChatGPT already

5. learn from a global media outlet on how to use GenAI

6. get more countries access to OpenAI’s ChatGPT iOS app

7. say wow! as AI helps a paralyzed man walk again

👋 A special Welcome! to NEW SUBSCRIBERS.
To reach previous posts, go here.

Thank you for the referrals!

Love the global reach. Sincerely appreciate you all spreading the word on Brainyacts!

Justin Cornish, CEO at Lighthouse Law (South Africa)
Andrea Peters, Senior Counsel at Interface (US)
Jan Ussing Andersen, Partner, Bird & Bird (Denmark)
Matthew Duncan, Director of Legal Operations at QIC (Australia)
Stephanie Dominy, Fractional GC (UK)
Samridhi Jain, Legal content writer, freelance (India)
Kate Boyd, Chief Operating Officer, Sente Advisors (US)
Jordan Furlong, Legal sector forecaster & analyst (Canada)
Sarah Bennett, Director of Library Services, Foaly Hoag (US)
Isabel Parker, Partner, Deloitte Legal (UK)
Julie Liberman, Litigation boutique founder & partner (US)
Sara Collins, Director of Legal Services Design, Nortons Rose Fulbright (UK)
Paula Adams, Legal Engineer, Orbital Witness (UK)

via Bing Image Creator

📖📒 a16z releases its ‘AI Canon’

Andreessen Horowitz, often abbreviated as "a16z" (16 being the number of letters between the 'A' in Andreessen and the 'z' in Horowitz), is a venture capital firm that provides money to startups that they think have a lot of potential.

They have been involved in the funding of several high-profile technology companies. Here are some of their most notable investments:

1. Facebook: One of the early major investments made by Andreessen Horowitz was in Facebook.

2. Twitter

3. Airbnb

4. Lyft

5. Pinterest

6. Coinbase

7. GitHub

8. Slack

Their AI Canon is a curated list of resources they’ve relied on to get smarter about modern AI. They call it the “AI Canon” because these papers, blog posts, courses, and guides have had an outsized impact on the field over the past several years.

🪐🎓Lawyer faces sanctions for using ChatGPT for legal research and citing non-existent cases

Just a quick, friendly heads-up for you all. ChatGPT is not to be used for legal research. This fellow lawyer (obviously not a Brainyacts subscriber) tried using it for legal research and ended up citing cases that don't exist. A bit of a whoops moment, wouldn't you agree?

Now, here's the deal. ChatGPT is great for many things, but finding real case precedents isn't one of them. It can mimic the look of legal cases, and might even correctly cite famous ones like Brown v. Board of Ed. But that's not because it's a secret AI attorney, it's because it's seen those characters (the letters and words) together a lot. Remember, in simplest terms, ChatGPT is simply generating text based on probabilities. It doesn’t know what case citations actually are - it just knows what they look like and when they tend to appear.

When it comes to the nitty-gritty of legal issues, ChatGPT can get a little too creative. It dreams up cases and citations because it knows they usually come with legal rulings. It's like an enthusiastic kid in a sandbox, building castles that aren't quite real.

So, friends, let's keep our AI tools in check, and remember they're no substitute for solid legal research. Stay smart out there!

So, how did this happen?

🤔 🤷‍♂️ The Defendant in this matter was struggling to find cases opposing counsel was submitting and stated so in a motion. 👇

🫤🤷As you can see from the lawyer’s affidavit, they did not know what they were doing or what ChatGPT can and cannot be used for.👇

⏭ Here is the link to the full docket if you care to dig in deeper.

⏭ Here’s some coverage on it as well.

⏭ NYTimes article on it.

News you can Use: 

Self-represented litigants are using ChatGPT right now!

While the legal profession wrestles over whether and how to use generative AI for legal tasks, regular people are already using it in courts as we speak.

The Financial Times lays out its GenAI approach

The media company reiterates that its journalism will continue to be reported and written by humans, in order to maintain the highest standards of accuracy and fairness.

This is helpful for Brainyacts readers as it shows a thoughtful, multi-dimensional approach to interacting and using generative AI. As your organization may be considering what to do about generative AI, this might help think through some things.

That said, this is how it will use generative AI.

1. Coverage: The FT is keen on covering AI as an important area, making it a significant source of information and analysis on AI in the future.

2. Analyzing and discovering stories: AI can help in finding patterns or themes for potential stories by analyzing large amounts of data more quickly than a human could.

3. Increasing productivity: The FT aims to use AI to increase productivity and free up time for reporters and editors to focus on generating and reporting original content.

4. Providing services: The business side of FT intends to leverage AI to provide improved services for readers and clients, thereby sustaining its record of effective innovation.

5. Experimentation: The FT plans to have a team that will experiment responsibly with AI tools to assist journalists in tasks such as mining data, analyzing text and images, and translation.

6. AI-augmented visuals: While FT won't publish photorealistic images generated solely by AI, it will explore the use of AI-augmented visuals (such as infographics, diagrams, photos), and will always make it clear to the reader when such visuals are used.

7. Summarizing capabilities: The FT will also consider, always with human oversight, using generative AI’s ability to summarize content.

8. Training and transparency: The FT plans to offer training to its journalists on how to use generative AI for story discovery, and it promises to maintain transparency about its use of AI, including recording all newsroom experimentation in an internal register.

OpenAI iOS app available in more countries

AI helps a paralyzed man walk again

DISCLAIMER: None of this is legal advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not legal advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any legal decisions. Please /be careful and do your own research.8