4 ms·

i think this is an AI-complete problem. Lawyers write contracts in legalese not because they love obfuscation (although some clearly do), but because it is basi

by phpnode 15y ago

i think this is an AI-complete problem. Lawyers write contracts in legalese not because they love obfuscation (although some clearly do), but because it is basically a DSL that tries to represent a set of terms in the least ambiguous way possible. To translate these documents into simpler language would require the translator (human or machine) to have a proper understanding of the content being translated, hence AI-complete. Also, the newly simplified contract would be a separate entity from the original contract, and therefore could be interpreted differently by a court. Anyone attempting to do this is opening themselves up to all sorts of horrible litigation

revorad 15y ago
Those are good points, but do you think MarketBrief is solving an AI-complete problem? There must be low-tech, semi-automated, crowdsourced solutions to this problem. The legal implications might be a problem, but maybe a community site with clear disclaimers can avoid any trouble. Even highlighting or extracting key parts of the original document would be useful.
- phpnode 15y ago
  no, as far as I can tell MarketBrief is a different thing entirely: they're generating their content from statistics, not by comprehending and rewriting existing texts. I think the essence is this - you can probably summarize these contracts and highlight important clauses with a crowd sourced solution as you suggest, but these summaries are just an interpretation of the contract, they can't replace the real thing.
  - mcherm 15y ago
    Nevertheless, a summary of the important points in the agreements would be EXTREMELY useful to me. Unless I go to court I probably don't care whether it is the law or the law AND the arbitration that is based on the legal framework of California USA. But I do care whether or not there is a clause that says "You Can't Sue Us" in one language or another.

by phpnode 15y ago

revorad 15y ago

Those are good points, but do you think MarketBrief is solving an AI-complete problem? There must be low-tech, semi-automated, crowdsourced solutions to this problem. The legal implications might be a problem, but maybe a community site with clear disclaimers can avoid any trouble. Even highlighting or extracting key parts of the original document would be useful.

phpnode 15y ago
no, as far as I can tell MarketBrief is a different thing entirely: they're generating their content from statistics, not by comprehending and rewriting existing texts. I think the essence is this - you can probably summarize these contracts and highlight important clauses with a crowd sourced solution as you suggest, but these summaries are just an interpretation of the contract, they can't replace the real thing.
- mcherm 15y ago
  Nevertheless, a summary of the important points in the agreements would be EXTREMELY useful to me. Unless I go to court I probably don't care whether it is the law or the law AND the arbitration that is based on the legal framework of California USA. But I do care whether or not there is a clause that says "You Can't Sue Us" in one language or another.