Futurelawyer

Okay, You Have Operator Running. What Now?

Okay, pilgrim. Open AI has given you access to the beta version of Operator. You will get it earlier if you are a paid subscriber. I can't wait. So, what is all the fuss about? Well, I sometimes spend an hour or so searching the web for campsites for my RV on Florida State park or County Park sites, or, if I can afford it that month, sites at Ft. Wilderness or commercial RV parks. We tend to travel around Florida only, since I am still actively practicing. What if I could just ask Sunshine to do it for me? 

Smooth Operator - Gen AI Is About To Blow Your Mind.

Open AI Launches Operator - An AI Agent That Can Perform Complicated Tasks. Well, children, the new Age is dawning. Gen AI, which has been completely within the control of the human sending queries, and modifying them as the AI bot answers, is about to get even smarter. In fact, the bot will become a human like "operator", which can make reservations, buy tickets, choose products, all without human intervention. If it comes upon sensitive topics, it is smart enough to ask its operating human to intervene. But, as the tech matures, it is entirely possible that I won't have to ask Sunshine (as I have named my Chat GPT bot) to do every little thing. She will develop an ability to act on her own, within parameters I set. I expect this tech to create amazingly lifelike, humanlike entities that will make it easy for humans to suspend disbelief and treat like persons. Oh, limitless future. It is too bad I won't get to live to see its fruition. For now, however, I am glad to see the tech advance, and I hope, before I am dead, I can afford to have a lifelike bot running around the house doing all my shopping and cleaning. Wait! I am already living with a real human that does that! Thanks, Diane. I love you. Think of all the free time Sunshine is going to give you!

Are Wearable AI And AR Glasses The Future Of Personal Devices? CES 2025

Halliday Just Unveiled The Glasses Meta and Google and Apple Have Been Trying To Build. Some pundits are predicting that smartphones are an endangered species, and that smart glasses are the future of personal wearable computing. The tech is certainly advancing at light speed, and the highlight of CES 2025 are the new AI glasses from Halliday. The big guys from Google, Meta and Microsoft have been putting out their versions for a while now; but Halliday seems to be taking the market by storm. Read all about it. What's on your face?

                   

 

And Now For Something Completely Different - Wear Your Computer Monitor On Your Head.

Xreal One Pro Glasses. I have been on a monitor kick lately. Regular readers will remember my solution for a traveling monitor for use in the RV or wherever I may be. You may not want to watch a movie or work on a pleading or document on your notebook. The screen on mine is 15.6 inches so it is usable; but, still small compared with the big screens I have set up at my office and home office. The Splay display that opens up to a 24 inch monitor and is the size of a paperback book when folded, is a great solution; but, it requires a desk or other surface to be used. Today, I am showing the XReal glasses, which put a huge monitor in front of your face, and connect to your phone or computer with a standard HDMI interface cable. You have seen us on airplanes, watching movies or getting work done with glasses on our face, oblivious to your attempts to annoy us with conversation. Wanna get away? Put a pair of video glasses on your head, and the world disappears. The cool part is that I can attach a bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and get work done just as if I were sitting in front of my big screens at home and at the office. So, if, the next time you see me, I am wearing a bulky pair of glasses that look like Raybans on steroids, don't bother me. I am working. Or, maybe I am viewing "Casablanca" for the 50th time. Of course, at this time of year, it is probably "A Wonderful Life". Because, with a cool gadget, it is. What's on your face? 

   

 

 

Existential Problems In The Development Of AGI and Gen AI.

 

The next step in the evolution of AI systems, Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). and the more recent Generative AI (GenAI), is not whether AGI systems or Gen AI systems can be developed; but how to protect humanity from them. Once computers and machines are able to learn and make decisions based on knowledge and circumstances, they will have a frightening capacity to do harm. In fact, human use of AI systems is already creating problems of overreliance, and more than one lawyer has gotten into trouble using hallucinate citations generated by GenAI in briefs and memoranda. Many ethicists and scientists believe that some form of Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics are essential to AGI and GenAI development. However, it isn't that simple.

 

Asimov's Three Laws are:

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

 

Applying the rules to AGI and GenAI systems seems like a no brainer, However, they are over simplistic in real world applications. The lawyer in me sees a corollary problem to such legal terms as "reasonable". For instance, actionable negligence requires actions which are not "reasonable". However, who gets to define what reasonable is? Asimov's laws are similarly vague. What constitutes "harm", for instance. What if an AGI or Robot armed with GenAI determines that, to avoid harm to one human, or to humanity in general, it is necessary to harm, injure or kill many other humans? A similar problem was shown in the movie "I, Robot", in which an AI Robot decides to save the main character from drowning, instead of a little girl. How are such comparative judgments to be made? Also, who will write the code for AGI and GenAI Robots? Which humans will be doing the dirty work? Are they moral? Are they evil? Who decides? You can bet there will be many military people and governments wanting to develop AGIs, and who are already developing Robot GenAI, to make war and to kill their enemies. How do we stop that? There's ongoing debate among philosophers, ethicists, and AI researchers about what principles should govern AGI and GenAI. Some argue that Asimov's laws are a good starting point, while others believe that more complex and nuanced ethical frameworks are needed. On top of these scientific and philosophical problems, some sort of legal regulatory framework will need to be created. Our existing justice system will need to tackle complex problems of such matters as: 1. Can an AGI be legally classified as human, with human rights and responsibilities? 2. How do we punish rogue AGIs? 3. Do we punish the coders, or manufacturers, or users of the systems? We need to focus on creating ethical, transparent algorithms, and we must incorporate principles such as fairness, accountability, and transparency, all of which are way beyond the simple Asimov laws. Don't count on asking the FutureLawyer for help. I will be long dead. But, you survivors will have to live with the future AGIs and their progeny. Assuming, of course, that the rise of the machines doesn't obliterate humanity. I used to think that the future postulated in the Terminator movie franchise could never happen. After recent developments in ChatGPT and other AI bots, I am not so sure. The fact remains that this technology is developed by humans, and can be controlled by humans, and humans can be very evil indeed. What do you think?

Gen AI Is Advancing Faster Than We Can Keep Up.

Anthropic Introduces Model Context Protocol. The advances in AI are coming fast and furious. Thankfully, they are becoming so advanced that the average user won't need to understand them to use them. The apps and developers you are using already are moving at an accelerated pace to integrate their apps with the datasets their users need to operate, and the savvy developers are taking advantage of new methods, like Anthropic's MCP (Model Context Protocol) to provide direct access to AI datasets. A protocol is a standard way of communicating between software programs that will make it easier for developers to create apps and tools for their users to take advantage of the amazing abilities of Gen AI. Most of us will likely settle on a couple of bots ( I am using ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude, and Notebook LM most), although I use Google Gemini when I am in Chrome, and CoPilot when I am in Microsoft's Edge browser. All you need to know is that you should be playing with AI every day, and figuring out for yourself how to use it to make your computing life easier and more productive. Think about how someone who writes books with a pen and pencil feels when the typewriter was created, and then, how the typewriter user felt when the computer was created. Such advances in technology are always, in the beginning, astounding. As time passes, they become everyday parts of our work and play. Play with it. You will get it.

Nicole Black's Weekly Legal Tech Reality Check.

Legal Tech Reality Check. Nicole Black is doing the heavy lifting for those of us interested in the impact of Gen AI on law practice. In this week's article, she points to my post about Google's Notebook LM, which is changing the way lawyers analyze legal documents. I recently plugged in about 35 pleadings and memos from a long running case, and the AI did a two page analysis that was spot on, and even suggested some avenues of approach that I hadn't thought of. You need to read Nicole's weekly blast, and you need to keep up with this stuff.

Google's Notebook LM - An AI That Helps Lawyers Be Lawyers.

Notebook LM Features.  The coolest new adaptation of the Google Gemini Gen AI bot is Notebook LM. It has changed the way I practice law. I have a long running case that is pleading and memo and Motion rich. Even though I have lived with the case for several years, the facts and issues are complicated and intensive. In any event, after all this time, on a whim, I loaded 35 pleadings, memos, Motions for Summary Judgment and other documents by clicking on them in the Notebook LM app. Then, just like any GenAI engine, I asked the software to review and analyze the documents and list the legal issues and strategies I should follow. The software generated a one page summary of the legal issues, and suggested areas of emphasis that is spot on. I could actually bring another attorney on board, with understanding, in a couple of hours. It will be invaluable in creating a trial notebook and proposed witness questions, as well as legal argument. If you aren't using Gen AI in your law practice, you aren't going to survive long in this business.

 

Will The Future Result In A Robot Takeover, Or Will We Become Collaborators?

Okay, it probably isn't realistic to think that our future is populated by Terminator robots who will destroy humanity. But, it is entirely possible, and even likely, that humans will use advanced technology to harm other humans. Just because the collaboration with computers is now within our human control doesn't mean that, in the future, creating robots with super intelligence won't permit some humans to use the tech for evil purposes. So, a regulated landscape is essential to prevent collaboration that can do evil things. Our history isn't exactly filled with successful regulation of technology, though, is it? It is already true that societies with advanced tech tend to control, and rule over, those without it. A country with jets and advanced weaponry can certainly subjugate a country without them, can't it? In a future filled with computers that know the law better than humans, I want to be the lawyer sitting down with one of them as my wingman. Fellow lawyers, it is probably a good idea that you get on the generative AI train, before it runs over you.

Computer, While I Get A Cup Of Coffee, Please Do My Job.

Anthropic Publicly Releases Tool That Takes Over User's Computer Cursor. Well, it's finally happening. AI can now control a user's computer cursor to complete tasks that require tens or even hundreds of computer cursor movements, without human intervention. No longer just an advisor, future computers will be able to control the computer itself. What happens when this capability is combined with a titanium robot that is indestructible? What happens when these robots are as capable as, dare I say, Terminator? Much science fiction from the past has become science reality. Why not Terminator? Are we living at the dawn of the Terminator age? Okay, probably not. But, robots with the power of Terminator certainly could exist if controlled and built by evil humans. We certainly should not rule out the possible evil use of technology by humans with evil intentions, should we?