Using ChatGPT to Practice Law? Use Common Sense Instead

Let’s start with this basic premise as our foundation:  AI has no common sense.  Period.  Sadly, however, sometimes those who over-rely on AI for important decisions don’t either.  Keep reading.

In late May, Thomson Reuters, which bills itself as a global content and technology company, announced that while investing $100 million on what it terms “AI capabilities,” it has created a new plugin with Microsoft 365 Copilot which, according to its press release will “bolster efforts for redefined professional work starting with legal research, drafting and client collaboration.”  Sounds useful. But only if those who rely on this collaboration recognize the challenges that it creates, not only for those who are allowing AI to support/aid/direct their legal research topics, but for those who are relying on that research to make decisions.  Reminder: AI has no common sense. (you may sense a theme here)…

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When There's No Dial Tone, There's No Kari's Law Compliance

Kari's Law has three core pillars – and facilities in the U.S. are still failing to meet one or all of these requirements.
Recently, I had dinner with a friend who travels a great deal for his job as an academic physician. He mentioned to me that when he gets to a hotel, he calls the front desk to set up a backup wakeup call in case his phone alarm fails to wake him at the right time. Within the past few trips, any time he's tried to accomplish this menial task, he's found that while there is a phone in his room, there is no dial tone when he picks up the receiver. It doesn't matter why there's no dial tone – any phone without a dial tone is a clear violation of Kari’s Law.

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Texting While Driving Is Not Just a Personal Problem

The combination of mobile communication and the expectation of instant availability can often lead to tragedy – and costly consequences if accidents happen on company time with company resources. Communication technology professionals have the opportunity to reduce these risks.
We’ve all become incredibly accustomed to seeing people texting and driving (or otherwise using mobile devices in unsafe ways ourselves), but ubiquity is not synonymous with risk reduction.

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When Contact Centers Fail

A terrible customer service experience with POTS leads our correspondent to ask – how can contact centers rise to meet the failures of the businesses they support? Right up front, let me say that I understand why contact centers exist. But I dislike them intensely. In fact, to me, contact centers, although often providing an acceptable level of service at a higher level of efficiency than traditional customer service, occasionally fail. And when they do, they fail miserably. I am living with the learned experience of what happens when high-touch customer service is replaced by systems meant to optimize profits while minimizing customer experience. I thought I knew, as a seasoned industry professional, how to resolve these problems. Clearly, I was wrong.

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The Funding Needed to Upgrade Our Public Safety Infrastructure Just Went Away

If federal funding for technology infrastructure to support the transition form E911 to NG 911 isn’t restored quickly, the underlying technology is on life support. It's not always easy to understand the underlying technology that makes calls to 911 work, and it's not always important to understand that technology, just so long as it works when you need it. But what is easy to understand—and important to know--is that if federal funding for technology infrastructure to support the transition from E911 to Next Generation 911 (NG 911) isn't made available quickly, the underlying technology, and the reliability and accuracy of caller location information that that technology enables, is itself on life support.

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