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Increasingly AI seems to be mostly downside. A legal chat bot without attorney-client privledge, also implies a medical chatbot may have no HIPAA protection. I

Increasingly AI seems to be mostly downside. A legal chat bot without attorney-client privledge, also implies a medical chatbot may have no HIPAA protection. It renders the service unsafe and therefore unusable and maybe more importantly... unsalable.

bpodgursky 7mo ago
Why are you taking what is clearly a legal problem and making it about the technology? The law could simply grant attorney-client privilege to chatbots. Nobody is arguing the advice was bad or more expensive than a real lawyer.
- rcxdude 7mo ago
  The obligations placed on lawyers with regards to misrepresentation are a kind of check on the power of attorney-client privilege which would generally not exist for chatbots, so it's not obvious that this would be a good idea.
- mywittyname 7mo ago
  Because it's the law misunderstanding technology. Chatbots are not people. They are computer programs. And there's no other realm I can think of where merely interfacing with a computer program breaks attorney-client privilege. It is equivalent to saying an email to your lawyer breaks privilege because you communicated with gmail. And it gets turbofucked when you consider that a program may be sending your information to an LLM. Would this same judge rule that having copilot installed in Outlook also breaks privilege because they "chatted with an outside party" while drafting an email (even if they didn't intend to send it to copilot)? I can't think of a reason this isn't about the technology.
  - cowboylowrez 7mo ago
    I do think we generalize too much, and "merely interfacing with a computer program" is too big a generalization. I could imagine that a videochat with your lawyer is protected because the very definition includes client / lawyer communications, ie., a "video chat with your lawyer" cannot happen without you and your lawyer yet there it is, both interfacing with a videochat program. A chat with a chatbot never needs a lawyer to be a "chat with a chatbot" lol
Tostino 7mo ago
This is a court issue, not a technical one. This has so many side effects that weren't thought through (Using Gmail to draft a letter to your attorney, but gmail has enabled AI editing...). Seems dumb, and like it will cause quite a few issues until it is overturned.
- rcxdude 7mo ago
  Intent matters, though. Accidentally divulging information you intended to send to your attorney is one thing, but if you are deliberately sending it somewhere else it's something different entirely.
- nozzlegear 7mo ago
  Why would this be overturned? AI is not a lawyer, it can't have attorney-client privilege. In your scenario, you're sending an email to the attorney, not chatting with a chatbot about your case.
  - ScoobleDoodle 7mo ago
    They’re saying it’s equivalent to writing a letter to their attorney in an online (Google) doc. Does that Google doc fall under attorney client privilege? If so, then does a Google doc for your attorney written with Google AI auto enabled have attorney client privilege? If so, the AI chats for figuring out what you want to say to your attorney would seem to fall under the same category. And so there is either a contradiction or an unintended widening of scope.
    - Tostino 7mo ago
      Exactly what I was trying to get at. Thanks.
    - nozzlegear 7mo ago
      Ah, it sounds like I don't understand how the Google AI works here. I thought it was just some kind of glorified auto-correct or maybe phrase suggestion at best.

bpodgursky 7mo ago

Why are you taking what is clearly a legal problem and making it about the technology? The law could simply grant attorney-client privilege to chatbots. Nobody is arguing the advice was bad or more expensive than a real lawyer.

rcxdude 7mo ago
The obligations placed on lawyers with regards to misrepresentation are a kind of check on the power of attorney-client privilege which would generally not exist for chatbots, so it's not obvious that this would be a good idea.
mywittyname 7mo ago
Because it's the law misunderstanding technology. Chatbots are not people. They are computer programs. And there's no other realm I can think of where merely interfacing with a computer program breaks attorney-client privilege. It is equivalent to saying an email to your lawyer breaks privilege because you communicated with gmail. And it gets turbofucked when you consider that a program may be sending your information to an LLM. Would this same judge rule that having copilot installed in Outlook also breaks privilege because they "chatted with an outside party" while drafting an email (even if they didn't intend to send it to copilot)? I can't think of a reason this isn't about the technology.
- cowboylowrez 7mo ago
  I do think we generalize too much, and "merely interfacing with a computer program" is too big a generalization. I could imagine that a videochat with your lawyer is protected because the very definition includes client / lawyer communications, ie., a "video chat with your lawyer" cannot happen without you and your lawyer yet there it is, both interfacing with a videochat program. A chat with a chatbot never needs a lawyer to be a "chat with a chatbot" lol

Tostino 7mo ago

This is a court issue, not a technical one. This has so many side effects that weren't thought through (Using Gmail to draft a letter to your attorney, but gmail has enabled AI editing...). Seems dumb, and like it will cause quite a few issues until it is overturned.

rcxdude 7mo ago
Intent matters, though. Accidentally divulging information you intended to send to your attorney is one thing, but if you are deliberately sending it somewhere else it's something different entirely.
nozzlegear 7mo ago
Why would this be overturned? AI is not a lawyer, it can't have attorney-client privilege. In your scenario, you're sending an email to the attorney, not chatting with a chatbot about your case.
- ScoobleDoodle 7mo ago
  They’re saying it’s equivalent to writing a letter to their attorney in an online (Google) doc. Does that Google doc fall under attorney client privilege? If so, then does a Google doc for your attorney written with Google AI auto enabled have attorney client privilege? If so, the AI chats for figuring out what you want to say to your attorney would seem to fall under the same category. And so there is either a contradiction or an unintended widening of scope.
  - Tostino 7mo ago
    Exactly what I was trying to get at. Thanks.
  - nozzlegear 7mo ago
    Ah, it sounds like I don't understand how the Google AI works here. I thought it was just some kind of glorified auto-correct or maybe phrase suggestion at best.