The Dawn of AI Litigation: What CCaas and UCaaS Implementors Need to Know

While most vendors position themselves as the invisible layer facilitating customer communications for their clients, they’re about to find out their data-handling policies may bring them new visibility.
As AI continues to be deployed, it’s only reasonable to assume that litigation around its use will become morecommon. We are at the dawn of the age where cases based on some form of AI-generated outcomes will provide the basis for a litigable cause of action. There is also a very hungry group of class action lawyers looking to jump on the next big fertile area of profitable litigation. In any case, it’s time to consider the legal vulnerabilities that are likely to be associated with AI use—particularly in the UCaaS and CCaaS spaces so that entities deploying these tools do so with their eyes open.

Click to read more ...

Net Neutrality Is On the Ropes – For Now

A recent court decision has taken its cues from this year’s Supreme Court – which could affect how we all use the Internet.
On August 1, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit put the FCC’s new net neutrality rules on hold, pending another hearing, now set for late October. The decision, and the accompanying concurrence, are clearly written and reflect a deference to perceived Congressional intent over that of the expertise and recommendation of the FCC, which is consistent with a very recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that is quoted within the case. What the court did in early August was simply “stay,” or put on hold, the new regulations that the FCC published on May 22, 2024, pending yet another hearing now scheduled for late in the fall. So for now, and for the foreseeable future, the return of a variation of the net neutrality rules from the Obama administration seems unlikely—at least in the near term.

Click to read more ...

How the U.S. Supreme Court’s Decisions Impact Enterprise Communications

Two new verdicts could move technical decisions and implementation away from those who know the policies best, and lengthens the time it will take to accomplish legal adjustments to accommodate technology advancements.
At the end of its current term, the U.S. Supreme Court issued some decisions that absolutely jeopardize the validity of actions taken by federal agencies and essentially moves the interpretation(s) of those rules away from the executive branch agencies staffed with the subject-matter experts who devised the rules in the first place and towards the other two branches of government, legislative and judiciary. In Loper Bright Enterprises et al v. Raimondo, the Supreme Court chucked a 40-year precedent requiring that, in the event of ambiguous or unclear statutory language promulgated by Congress, courts should defer to the agencies where expertise resides for clarification and interpretation. The Chevron Doctrine, which was created by the high court in a 1984 case, stood for the concept that judges should defer to executive branch agencies when interpreting gaps and ambiguities in the laws they implement, so long as those interpretations are reasonable.

Click to read more ...

Reliance on AI Tools Continues to Carry Significant Risks

It’s important to know that AI outputs are best used when they are used as contributing factors and not relied upon solely for decision making
“An Algorithm Told Police She Was Safe. Then Her Husband Killed Her.” appeared in the New York Times on July 18th and it describes the downsides of using AI for life-or-death situations. The article describes an effort by Spanish authorities to rely uponan AI algorithm to categorize and assess the likelihood that previous victims of domestic violence would be assaulted again at the hands of their spouses.

Click to read more ...

AI in the Work Environment? Be Mindful

As AI-infused tools become part of the employee experience – from hiring to scheduling to performance assessment – it’s important to assess the risks inherent in these tools.
For a several years, I’ve been thinking and writing about ethical use of artificial intelligence both within the enterprise and beyond. While these topics remain of paramount interest to me and importance to all, given AI’s rapid deployment in various levels of the enterprise, it seems prudent to share some guidance on AI use in the context of employment, particularly from the perspective of the employer.

Click to read more ...