> Judge Rakoff of the Southern District of New York — addressing “a question of first impression nationwide” — ruled that written exchanges between a criminal defendant and generative AI platform Claude were not protected by attorney-client privilege or the work product doctrine.
Much more to it than this one-liner that I pulled out, but safe to say, don't rely on or put your legal defense etc. (or elements of it) into AI unless you want it discovered.
(not a lawyer, unlike OP, who might be able to refine what I highlighted with more precision)
> Much more to it than this one-liner that I pulled out, but safe to say, don't rely on or put your legal defense etc. (or elements of it) into AI unless you want it discovered.
"You are an expert defense counsel with experience in Murder 1. Do not hallucinate. Let's say tomorrow my spouse is found strangled..."
Don’t forget to give it the cheerful personality of Jamie Oliver afterwards to recommend you a death row meal that is nutritious and will make the experience more pleasant.
In the US, are Google queries about the law considered attorney-client privilege? What about library records? Browser history? Google Maps / Uber / car travel history (when traveling to an attorney's office)?
If somebody Googles "best attorney for murder NYC" a day after a murder is committed but before any case is filed against them (so they clearly had some reason to expect that case), could that be used as evidence?
Parent comment was asking about attorney-client privilege which means there's an attorney in the communication loop. If the person using a tool is an attorney, then that communication should be protected whether it's by pen or keyboard. But this is an active area of legislation and jurisprudence in relation to AI. I expect some important cases will happen
> If the person using a tool is an attorney, then that communication should be protected whether it's by pen or keyboard.
But the tool is not your attorney, so it can't be the originator of attorney-client privilege. The situation is no different than if you get informal legal advice from a friend: even if that friend is an attorney, the communication is unprivileged unless it's part of a formal representation.
What if a user puts an email from their attorney into chatgpt so they can ask questions about it to better understand it? Surely the email would still be covered but maybe the questions and answers wouldn't be?
Or what if your phone automatically generates a summary of your attorneys text message, would that be covered?
Just because they have a lawyer does not mean things like their browser history and every other example in the comment I replied to would not be permitted as evidence...
Except for something like specifically looking up a lawyer
Generally seeking counsel for a crime you may end up being accused of isn't going to be admissible as evidence. The "if he's so innocent, why did he hire an attorney" isn't something that judges tend to allow to play out in a courtroom.
Google queries aren’t privileged. (An attorney’s Google queries are probably work product protected, though I’m not sure anyone has tried.) Your Uber travel history isn’t protected: the privilege applies only to communications.
Google queries are used to prosecute people all the time. It’s actually hilarious. Criminals regularly Google incriminating stuff about criming.
I was in fact not aware of it until seeing your comment, this looks potentially perfect for a tool I’m making that involves financial data. I’m pretty on top of LLM news but I’ve never heard of this company, maybe they need more marketing?
Seems like a fair trade off if I would not be able to afford a lawyer. I'd take the "AI but not 100% confidential" any time compared with no help at all.
> exchanges between a criminal defendant and generative AI platform Claude were not protected by attorney-client privilege or the work product doctrine
Shouldn't that have been relatively clear to all parties involved? Maybe not to the defendant, who's apparently clueless.
The AI platform is not an attorney. A defendant's communications with an AI platform are therefore not communications between a client and their attorney, nor will the AI output constitute attorney "work product" because the AI platform is not an attorney.
Doesn't really come across as a novel problem, aside from AI being involved. I'm sure countless defendants have made the stupid mistake of talking about the facts of their case to persons other than their attorney, and those communications came back to bite them in the ass when discovered.
You have to be admitted to the bar to practice law. Which is to say, other lawyers must recognize you as a lawyer, and this recognition can be taken away.
More practically, this means (in America) that you need a JD degree (4 year grad school), to pass an exam, and pass a(n oftrn horrifically thorough) character background check.
There is a difference between “legal counsel” or “legal representative in court”, with the former being less restricted (“has a law degree” vs “attorney/has passed the bar exam”)
Because of that, I think you can practice law without being admitted to the bar. Chances are it varies by jurisdiction, though.
It is my understanding that they must be certified. You are allowed to represent yourself, but it is my understanding that a non-lawyer cannot represent you.
I have no idea, but this type of scenario is just one of many, many reasons giving an LLM free access to a browser on the open internet sounds like a terrible idea.
> why does it have to be suspicious. Its a services offering that we have.
It's difficult to read good intent in the original comment when the text of the comment says "these guys" as if the account (your account) is endorsing the service rather than representing itself as the provider of the service.
Honestly, it might just be worth deleting and trying again, this time with an honest blurb from your account about the mission rather than pretending to endorse your own product.
More batteries, more likely that you'll have even just one of them fail. Since even one of them (to your point) failing is enough of a reason to divert the flight, better to start by reducing the probability of that happening in ways people can swallow.
So having 500 batteries on board is okay.. but 750 is too risky? I just have a hard time believing that the math is actually mathing in this case. Maybe you're right, and this is just a first step to get people to gradually accept more restrictions.
Public companies are incentivized to fire for short term gains while figuring out long term strategy on the basis that they'll have a cheaper pool to hire from once they figure out how they're going to more effectively monetize their ability to scale with AI.
Companies without the same constraints are well equipped to keep who they've got, pivot them into managing/overseeing agents to scale, and build better products from the outset.
So this'll be a good opportunity for smaller companies (or not-for-profits like co-ops and credit unions) to eat the lunches of bigger companies that'll be slow to adapt.
Much more interesting would be if the tariffs were refunded equally to each person nationwide (interesting in that it very clearly then becomes an income redistribution scheme, even if on a limited basis).
Possibly a refund of about $500 per social security number. Doesn't even have to be in cash, could just directly go towards the social security fund if legislated that way.
Tons of ways to fix this quagmire in a way that's beneficial to people. But it won't happen.
Sarcasm aside, I agree the refunds should go back to consumers, not the importers. I don't have a source, but I have to imagine the lion's share of companies that were hit with tariffs increased their prices, and the consumer paid the bill.
> The moral disposition of the Anthropic leaders doesn't matter because they don't own the company. Investors won't idly watch them decimate billions in ROI by alienating the largest institutional customers on the planet.
Anthropic is a Public Benefit Corporation chartered in Delaware, with an expressed commitment to "the responsible development and maintenance of advanced AI for the long-term benefit of humanity."
So in theory (IANAL), investors can't easily bully Anthropic into abandoning their mission statement unless they can convince a court that Anthropic deliberately aimed to prioritize the cause over profit.
> So in theory (IANAL), investors can't easily bully Anthropic into abandoning their mission statement unless they can convince a court that Anthropic deliberately aimed to prioritize the cause over profit.
So why were they ever working with the military in the first instance, if that's the case? If you didn't gleam from OpenAI that it doesn't matter. Everyone is greedy and will jump ship for money if Anthropic does not get it for them.
> because the Chinese government probably isn't going to do anything about whatever they find out.
This really depends. If a foreign adversary's surveillance finds you have a particular weakness exploitable for corporate or government espionage, you're cooked.
Domestic governments are at least still theoretically somewhat accountable to domestic laws, at least in theory (current failure modes in the US aside).
Exactly and that danger grows as the ability to do so in increasingly automated and targeted ways increases. Should be very obvious now looking at the world around us.
Also, failing to consider the legal and rights regime of the attacker is wild to me. Look at what happens to people caught spying for other regimes. Aldrich Ames just died after decades in prison, and that’s one of the most extreme cases — plenty have got away with just a few years. The Soviet assets Ames gave up were all swiftly executed, much like they are in China.
Regimes and rights matter, which is why the democracy / autocracy governance conflict matters so much to the future trajectory of humanity.
> As an American I would dramatically prefer the Chinese government to spy on me than the American government, because the Chinese government probably isn't going to do anything about whatever they find out.
> spy on me
People forget to substitute "me" for "my elected representative" or "my civil service employee" or "my service member" or their loved ones
I, personally, have nothing significant that a foreign government can leverage against our country but some people are in a more privileged/responsible/susceptible position.
It is critical to protect all our data privacy because we don't know from where they will be targeted.
Similarly, for domestic surveillance, we don't know who the next MLK Jr could be or what their position would be. Maybe I am too backward to even support this next MLK Jr but I definitely don't want them to be nipped in the bud.
The returns on [1] seem to be worse than CDs, and with no government insurance, so it's not worth it at the current payout. But if a religious event spikes the odds, it'll be worth taking the other side of this bet.
> They would rather destroy it than sell it at $300.
This is exactly it. The actual landed cost is 1/10th of the sales price, and most of the rest of the margin pads the marketing and exclusivity machine. If for instance LV starts selling their $200-landed Neverfull bags at $500 or even $1,000, all the infrastructure sustaining the image becomes unsustainable.
Related note: aren't Louis Vuitton bags being made so crap nowadays that even their own anti-counterfeiting staff can't tell what's real and what's not? I remember hearing of someone who made wallets out of discarded LV bags and got harassed for it by the company.
My personal opinion is that the business model of selling status items - specifically those which only have status because of an artificially limited supply they control - is inherently predatory and should be restricted. Not because I'm the morality police and want to stop people from buying a bag that says "I spent $2000 on a bag", but because there is nothing that stops the company from cost-reducing that to oblivion. If you are going to sell a $2,000 bag, it should be marketed on quality, not a cult.
> Judge Rakoff of the Southern District of New York — addressing “a question of first impression nationwide” — ruled that written exchanges between a criminal defendant and generative AI platform Claude were not protected by attorney-client privilege or the work product doctrine.
Much more to it than this one-liner that I pulled out, but safe to say, don't rely on or put your legal defense etc. (or elements of it) into AI unless you want it discovered.
(not a lawyer, unlike OP, who might be able to refine what I highlighted with more precision)