It really is too bad about DoNotPay... Because having a publicly available chatbot to navigate all the hoops companies make us jump through (which of course they set up on purpose in order to keep us locked into products, paying higher prices etc etc) is actually a great idea and would be an excellent, welfare increasing use of AI. I could see a similar approach being used to help people apply for public benefits they are entitled to. This kind of thing could actually could help a ton of people.
And the thing is, helping someone navigate customer service or apply for benefits does not require a law license! You could make a great product with this same basic business model and never run into the legal issues.
But then the companies will set up their own chatbots to make customer's chatbots jump through hoops, and it will come down to who has the best chatbot.
I was listening to a tech guy talk about how great it is that doctors can use chatbots to write letters to insurance companies about why a patient needs a particular treatment and it's like, yeah that's great until the insurance company gets a better chatbot.
The statement of care applications are rarely adversarial. They're a requirement to justify care. They lie pretty squarely in the domain of tedious, wrote work where automation could definitely decrease toil for doctors.
Think of it like a letter from your doctor for your teacher. It's super rare they ever challenge it, the fact that it's from your doctor is the main requirement.
I just came here to point out that the hero of today's story Kathryn Tewson is a big fan of Jesse and definitely hasn't spent the last month plus railing against Jesse over trans issues.
This has the makings of a romcom: Podcaster/journalist develops crush on crusading paralegal. After learning that she hates him for wanting to murder trans kids, he records a whole episode of his podcast devoted to her biggest crusade, making sure to praise her effusively in the hope that her friends will tell her to listen. She eventually listens to the podcast and says, "Anybody who loves me this much can't be the murderer and hippo violator that I thought he was." They go out on a date and immediately realize that they are meant for each other. They discover that the whole trans kids debate is "complicated" and live happily ever after (after killing her husband).
Joshua Browder is the son of Bill Browder, an American-born financier/hedge fund manager, who was the grandson of Earl Browder, head of the American Communist Party (CPUSA). Bill renounced his US Citizenship and is based in the UK. He is most well-known for being the driving force behind the Magnitsky Act, against human rights abuse in Russia, so named for his Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, who died in Russian custody.
A not insignificant amount of US expats renounce because the US taxes worldwide income (unlike pretty much every other civilized country) and requires obscene amounts of paperwork and disclosure of foreign bank accounts. Plus taxing things like foreign retirement accounts depending on what tax treaty your country has with the US. The disclosures required are so onerous for foreign banks, that many in Europe will not offer investment services and other products to US citizens. A lot of people who are dual citizens and start businesses in their new home country renounce, because the US taxes and reporting are so expensive and invasive.
He became a British citizen in 1998; he cited his grandfather’s treatment as part of the reason. His grandfather was actually involved with Soviet espionages, and the head of the CPUSA, which was heavily subsidized by the Soviets and a major source of espionage activity.
I’m halfway through his book “Red Notice,” will report back if he explains why. He originally moved to London in order to work at an investment firm there, and then remained because he was investing in the Russian private sector.
It’s an “international school” accent, my kids went to an international school for almost five years and came out with this weird UK/US “transatlantic” accent - they say “trash can” and “gah-raaage” as well as “trousers” and “baff”.
It actually does though - that's the accent that lots of London kids have whose parents have American accents but have gone to British schools all their lives, particularly the London superselectives - or conversely, kids whose parents are not American, but who went to international schools. It's a transatlantic accent. I'd put money on Browder having gone to St Paul's, Westminster, Highgate, UCS, City of London or Latymer Upper. (If he went to ASL or one of the ACSs with American parents, he'd probably have a more American accent.)
My brother successfully contested a speeding ticket once, but he still got hit with court costs that far exceeded the cost of the ticket. It literally would have been cheaper for him to just pay the ticket before the court date than successfully contest it, which is obviously the point.
Worth it if the violation will add points to your license/increase insurance premiums. I paid one ticket a long time ago and I regretted it for two years or so as over time I paid more than the ticket in higher premiums. The last time I got a ticket for running a stop sign I paid an online service about $200 to send a lawyer to court for me. No work required on my part and downgraded to a fine with nothing on my record. No change in insurance premiums, I’d do it again no question.
The problem tho is that the court agreed that the ticket wasn’t valid. To actually win the case, but then to be told you have to pay them money anyway is insane. If anyone should pay the court costs in that situation, it’s the police. Maybe that would
I got a ticket for… changing lanes too fast. No, I wasn’t speeding. Officer confirmed. He just said I didn’t have the legal footage to change three lanes on this particular block. There were no other cars on the block when I was driving through. And yes, rich and boring neighborhood for patrol. I had a feeling the judge would’ve absolutely side eyed that cop, if he showed at all. But ultimately, legal fees weren’t worth it. Now it’s just a party story for the ACAB crowd.
Re: Joshua Browder. I think there's something wrong with people at Stanford. It seems like a very sick culture. From Theranos to Sam Bankman Fried's parents to (now) Browder, something's rotten there.
I know! I graduated from there in the mid-1980s when it was a fun, stimulating place with plenty of us smart middle-class kids who felt lucky to be there. Virtually none of us grew up with the expectation that we were crafting a "resume" that would get us into a top school. There were some wealthy prep-school kids, and they tended to be the ones who got caught cheating, but most of us took the Honor Code seriously. A substantial number of students definitely planned to get rich by going to biz school and becoming management consultants, but most of my friends turned out to be engineers. (Some of them got rich by accident, being employed in Silicon Valley just as it took off and exercising their stock options early on.)
I can't imagine attending Stanford now. The fun is gone. It's a pressure cooker for kids who survived extreme pressure-cooker childhoods. The bureaucrats are heavy handed. Silicon Valley money instilled a venture-capitalist mindset in much of the campus. All the wild places I loved - especially my co-op house where we kept chickens and enjoyed Sendak murals painted on the walls by previous students, and the Band Shak - were demolished gleefully after the 1989 quake by planners intent on manicuring the campus and erasing any trace of human imperfection (aka personality). Bari Weiss recently published an article on the climate, which sounds bleak and miserable. I know a few students and the article rings pretty true. https://www.thefp.com/p/stanfords-war-against-its-own-students
That Bari Weiss article pissed me off because she brushed off an assault by Katie Meyer as simply an "impulsive act". Assault is assault. You don't get a pass for it. Sure it's tragic when a person commits suicide, but her "impulsive assault" shows that there was something deeply flawed with her.
I'll need to read more on this, but pouring coffee on someone seems like about the lowest bar for "assault"....kind of down there with spitting on someone.
*edit*
I mean was the guy hurt by the incident? Like was it McDonald's level hot coffee?
AI/Automated demand letters are actually a kinda dumb idea. The whole point of a demand letter is to say "I'm serious enough about this that I've already hired and paid a lawyer." If it's just a cheap demand letter drafted by a non-lawyer, it totally fails that purpose.
I think demand letters are usually required before you can file suit, so even if they’re amateurish they indicate that you might pursue the process further.
I've been catching up slowly, and I'm in a different time zone (Israel) so I may be late or in the wrong thread.
But I need to remind Jesse that we Jews have our own "magic underwear." Of course, ours actually work! (And they serve a different function than the LDS ones.)
If Jesse had paid attention in Hebrew School, he would have known about the "Tallit Katan" (aka "tzitztit") which are worn under your shirt or outer garments. Many people wear a t-shirt between their body and the Tallit Katan, and a dress shirt over it. Some people tuck the fringes in and others let them hang out. (I like to let them hang out!).
Here's a link to a store that sells them. (I don't get a kickback from them! It's just for illustration).
(Deuteronomy/Devarim 22:11) "You shall make tassels on the four corners of the garment with which you cover yourself."
and
(Numbers/Bamidbar 15:38) "Speak to the Israelite people and instruct them to make for themselves fringes on the corners of their garments throughout the ages; let them attach a cord of blue to the fringe at each corner."
So in order to fulfill this "positive commandment", we purposefully wear a garment with 4 corners so we can put fringes on them! There are also questions whether it's permissable to wear a 4-cornered garment (for example, a poncho) that doesn't have fringes on it. (The accepted answer is "no"-- the way around it is to round at least one of the corners.)
I feel that there is a Cyrano de Bergeracish movie with a Chatbot whispering sweet legalities to a lawyer in court who gets all the acclaim, while the now sentient AI is ignored for its big AI nose.
This is one of the funniest episodes I think they’ve put out in a while. Thanks guys
Yes, I missed this lightness.
They did sound happier.
Aww, Katie and Jesse, you guys are so sweet. Here's hoping you get to attend *each other's* funerals! ❤️
It really is too bad about DoNotPay... Because having a publicly available chatbot to navigate all the hoops companies make us jump through (which of course they set up on purpose in order to keep us locked into products, paying higher prices etc etc) is actually a great idea and would be an excellent, welfare increasing use of AI. I could see a similar approach being used to help people apply for public benefits they are entitled to. This kind of thing could actually could help a ton of people.
And the thing is, helping someone navigate customer service or apply for benefits does not require a law license! You could make a great product with this same basic business model and never run into the legal issues.
But then the companies will set up their own chatbots to make customer's chatbots jump through hoops, and it will come down to who has the best chatbot.
I was listening to a tech guy talk about how great it is that doctors can use chatbots to write letters to insurance companies about why a patient needs a particular treatment and it's like, yeah that's great until the insurance company gets a better chatbot.
The statement of care applications are rarely adversarial. They're a requirement to justify care. They lie pretty squarely in the domain of tedious, wrote work where automation could definitely decrease toil for doctors.
Think of it like a letter from your doctor for your teacher. It's super rare they ever challenge it, the fact that it's from your doctor is the main requirement.
It sounds like it was a really useful service at first.
💯
I just came here to point out that the hero of today's story Kathryn Tewson is a big fan of Jesse and definitely hasn't spent the last month plus railing against Jesse over trans issues.
Hey glad to hear it!
This has the makings of a romcom: Podcaster/journalist develops crush on crusading paralegal. After learning that she hates him for wanting to murder trans kids, he records a whole episode of his podcast devoted to her biggest crusade, making sure to praise her effusively in the hope that her friends will tell her to listen. She eventually listens to the podcast and says, "Anybody who loves me this much can't be the murderer and hippo violator that I thought he was." They go out on a date and immediately realize that they are meant for each other. They discover that the whole trans kids debate is "complicated" and live happily ever after (after killing her husband).
“hippo violator” is disturbing imagery.
People are saying it’s included in the + of LGBTQ+.
excuse me but it's hippx.
I will work to educate myself on the historical injustices faced by Hippx. Thank you for holding me accountable.
Evidently LatinX has been replaced by Latine, so it’s clearly now Hippe
(People meaning me right now.)
I’m not wearing my glasses and I read this as hippo vibrator. 🤣
I'm pretty sure it would be the hippo doing the violating. Those river horses are terrifying. https://a-z-animals.com/blog/hippo-attacks-how-dangerous-are-they-to-humans/
Plot twist: they give birth to a trans kid.
:-O
That's the sequel.
This is brilliant. It may be just the vehicle Armie Hammer needs to rehabilitate his career.
Joshua Browder is the son of Bill Browder, an American-born financier/hedge fund manager, who was the grandson of Earl Browder, head of the American Communist Party (CPUSA). Bill renounced his US Citizenship and is based in the UK. He is most well-known for being the driving force behind the Magnitsky Act, against human rights abuse in Russia, so named for his Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, who died in Russian custody.
Ohhh. You know why he renounced his US citizenship? That is a pretty big deal. But that shit is crazy
A not insignificant amount of US expats renounce because the US taxes worldwide income (unlike pretty much every other civilized country) and requires obscene amounts of paperwork and disclosure of foreign bank accounts. Plus taxing things like foreign retirement accounts depending on what tax treaty your country has with the US. The disclosures required are so onerous for foreign banks, that many in Europe will not offer investment services and other products to US citizens. A lot of people who are dual citizens and start businesses in their new home country renounce, because the US taxes and reporting are so expensive and invasive.
This will be me in the next few years. The US tax regime is bloody annoying, especially since I've never even lived in the US!
He became a British citizen in 1998; he cited his grandfather’s treatment as part of the reason. His grandfather was actually involved with Soviet espionages, and the head of the CPUSA, which was heavily subsidized by the Soviets and a major source of espionage activity.
I’m halfway through his book “Red Notice,” will report back if he explains why. He originally moved to London in order to work at an investment firm there, and then remained because he was investing in the Russian private sector.
It is the renunciation of his US citizenship I find so fascinating. But now that you mention the book,. I think I have heard him interviewed.
That Bill Browser!! Well that explains the MSM blinders!
Bill Browder!
That would explain the weird accent.
It’s an “international school” accent, my kids went to an international school for almost five years and came out with this weird UK/US “transatlantic” accent - they say “trash can” and “gah-raaage” as well as “trousers” and “baff”.
Agree - I have one myself! I'm too British for Americans but too American for the British. People often guess Canadian or Kiwi with the rhotic accent.
It ...really doesn't. Otherwise every kid with an immigrant parent would have a strange accent. Unless I guess he also grew up in the US
It actually does though - that's the accent that lots of London kids have whose parents have American accents but have gone to British schools all their lives, particularly the London superselectives - or conversely, kids whose parents are not American, but who went to international schools. It's a transatlantic accent. I'd put money on Browder having gone to St Paul's, Westminster, Highgate, UCS, City of London or Latymer Upper. (If he went to ASL or one of the ACSs with American parents, he'd probably have a more American accent.)
Accents are fascinating. Thanks for this explanation.
My brother successfully contested a speeding ticket once, but he still got hit with court costs that far exceeded the cost of the ticket. It literally would have been cheaper for him to just pay the ticket before the court date than successfully contest it, which is obviously the point.
Worth it if the violation will add points to your license/increase insurance premiums. I paid one ticket a long time ago and I regretted it for two years or so as over time I paid more than the ticket in higher premiums. The last time I got a ticket for running a stop sign I paid an online service about $200 to send a lawyer to court for me. No work required on my part and downgraded to a fine with nothing on my record. No change in insurance premiums, I’d do it again no question.
The problem tho is that the court agreed that the ticket wasn’t valid. To actually win the case, but then to be told you have to pay them money anyway is insane. If anyone should pay the court costs in that situation, it’s the police. Maybe that would
incentivize then not to write up BS tickets.
yeah. I'm struggling to wrap my head around a tax on being innocent.
I got a ticket for… changing lanes too fast. No, I wasn’t speeding. Officer confirmed. He just said I didn’t have the legal footage to change three lanes on this particular block. There were no other cars on the block when I was driving through. And yes, rich and boring neighborhood for patrol. I had a feeling the judge would’ve absolutely side eyed that cop, if he showed at all. But ultimately, legal fees weren’t worth it. Now it’s just a party story for the ACAB crowd.
This must be state specific.
Re: Joshua Browder. I think there's something wrong with people at Stanford. It seems like a very sick culture. From Theranos to Sam Bankman Fried's parents to (now) Browder, something's rotten there.
I know! I graduated from there in the mid-1980s when it was a fun, stimulating place with plenty of us smart middle-class kids who felt lucky to be there. Virtually none of us grew up with the expectation that we were crafting a "resume" that would get us into a top school. There were some wealthy prep-school kids, and they tended to be the ones who got caught cheating, but most of us took the Honor Code seriously. A substantial number of students definitely planned to get rich by going to biz school and becoming management consultants, but most of my friends turned out to be engineers. (Some of them got rich by accident, being employed in Silicon Valley just as it took off and exercising their stock options early on.)
I can't imagine attending Stanford now. The fun is gone. It's a pressure cooker for kids who survived extreme pressure-cooker childhoods. The bureaucrats are heavy handed. Silicon Valley money instilled a venture-capitalist mindset in much of the campus. All the wild places I loved - especially my co-op house where we kept chickens and enjoyed Sendak murals painted on the walls by previous students, and the Band Shak - were demolished gleefully after the 1989 quake by planners intent on manicuring the campus and erasing any trace of human imperfection (aka personality). Bari Weiss recently published an article on the climate, which sounds bleak and miserable. I know a few students and the article rings pretty true. https://www.thefp.com/p/stanfords-war-against-its-own-students
That Bari Weiss article pissed me off because she brushed off an assault by Katie Meyer as simply an "impulsive act". Assault is assault. You don't get a pass for it. Sure it's tragic when a person commits suicide, but her "impulsive assault" shows that there was something deeply flawed with her.
I'll need to read more on this, but pouring coffee on someone seems like about the lowest bar for "assault"....kind of down there with spitting on someone.
*edit*
I mean was the guy hurt by the incident? Like was it McDonald's level hot coffee?
Best housekeeping segment EVER (with a hard R).
RETAHDIT!
Tupid...!
Elon Musk was born in South Africa, he legally cannot run for US President, how ridiculous are people?
that didn't stop Obama.
*mic drop*
Elon Musk: our second African-American president.
I’m not a religious man (or a man), but I do thank the lord for this often.
As if he could be worse than anyone we’ve had the last 30 years?
Things can always get worse.
AI/Automated demand letters are actually a kinda dumb idea. The whole point of a demand letter is to say "I'm serious enough about this that I've already hired and paid a lawyer." If it's just a cheap demand letter drafted by a non-lawyer, it totally fails that purpose.
I think demand letters are usually required before you can file suit, so even if they’re amateurish they indicate that you might pursue the process further.
I thought Jesse’s accent was British Mrs. Doubtfire.
A.k.a. Mrs. Featherbottom (i.e. Tobias Fünke)
I've been catching up slowly, and I'm in a different time zone (Israel) so I may be late or in the wrong thread.
But I need to remind Jesse that we Jews have our own "magic underwear." Of course, ours actually work! (And they serve a different function than the LDS ones.)
If Jesse had paid attention in Hebrew School, he would have known about the "Tallit Katan" (aka "tzitztit") which are worn under your shirt or outer garments. Many people wear a t-shirt between their body and the Tallit Katan, and a dress shirt over it. Some people tuck the fringes in and others let them hang out. (I like to let them hang out!).
Here's a link to a store that sells them. (I don't get a kickback from them! It's just for illustration).
https://tzitzit.tallit-shop.com/tallit-katan-tzitzit/
Unlike the LDS garments, you don't need to be a card-carrying Jew to buy one.
What is the function they serve?
It says in the Hebrew Bible in several places
(Deuteronomy/Devarim 22:11) "You shall make tassels on the four corners of the garment with which you cover yourself."
and
(Numbers/Bamidbar 15:38) "Speak to the Israelite people and instruct them to make for themselves fringes on the corners of their garments throughout the ages; let them attach a cord of blue to the fringe at each corner."
(See https://www.sefaria.org/Numbers.15.38?lang=bi&aliyot=0 )
So in order to fulfill this "positive commandment", we purposefully wear a garment with 4 corners so we can put fringes on them! There are also questions whether it's permissable to wear a 4-cornered garment (for example, a poncho) that doesn't have fringes on it. (The accepted answer is "no"-- the way around it is to round at least one of the corners.)
Wait...So mormons are jews?
I thought "hard arrrrgh" was a term for near-porn in a pirate movie.
I am a professional biologist and there is absolutely bird telepathy happening.
Woodpeckers drum on the loudest spot they can find.
Also, the other day I thought I heard right-wing chanting near my house but it was just pigeons having sex.
You are cursed. You must find a place with no birds.
Well they are always talking about a coup.
Colin Wright is that you?
Diplo’s eulogy might have been fake, but the majestic legacy of P-22 was real.
I feel that there is a Cyrano de Bergeracish movie with a Chatbot whispering sweet legalities to a lawyer in court who gets all the acclaim, while the now sentient AI is ignored for its big AI nose.
That's at least a small part of the plot of A Tale of Two Cities....(not the AI part). But seriously, you have e a great film idea!