As A.I. makes law firms more efficient, clients ask: 'Where's my discount?'

Do you have any issues with thr tech industry selling software licenses?

Because a lawyer selling a contract template, is in many ways, very similar in concept to tech industry selling a software license/seat.

They are both akin to “templates”, and selling IP.

> I know this because they often don’t proofread it afterwards.

It’s hilarious to see people complaining about lawyers being overpaid and incompetent on a forum dedicated to an industry that was completely unregulated up until about a month ago. A lawyer can be disbarred from his profession for making these kinds of mistakes; can you?

I recently had a similar experience where it became very clear that the lawyers were using AI to draft the agreements. Though it was very accurate and pedantic on some matters, it got other things completely wrong because it was not provided with full context, and full context is very difficult to provide.

The lawyers did not properly review the agreements, causing post-signature discovery of major issues and having to redo and execute all the agreements a second time, leading to inflated lawyer bills.

If the lawyer is going to prompt the same AI that I can prompt myself and is not going to review the agreements thoroughly, then it is clear where this is leading.

Not really fair comparison. I agree they are ripping us, but the "template" is like a source code. It takes time and money to write and maintain it.

Weird take on a site with most of us coasting on a near zero marginal cost product.

Lawyer jokes are on point and on brand for a reason.

They grift about as hard as tech workers did pre-2022. Relying on the fact that no one can easily audit their work to justify their one hour of actually work despite making easily 300K+ a year.

Please kill their golden goose. Most lawyers are actively harmful to society.

> I’m totally fine with that industry getting disrupted.

Because you'd rather pay your $1000 to OpenAI for 5 milliseconds of work, instead of to a human lawyer for 10 seconds of work?

When I was looking for an apartment recently, the big "luxury" buildings use AI agents to schedule tours and answer questions. Tours are also self-serve, you don't actually get to meet and talk to anyone. It's a crappy experience. I had to call an AI agent to figure out how to get in the front door of a building and it completely failed to answer this very basic question (fortunately someone eventually saw me knocking). When I toured one large complex there were several groups wandering through the building at once. It did not give me a particularly safe feeling to see that random people going everywhere in the buildings unescorted had been completely normalized.

> Lawyers are trying to charge the same prices, when both sides know they are working half the hours.

An absurd claim presented without evidence.

> That'd be suicide.

And yet many software developers are hyping themselves into obsolescence by pretending you can't write code by hand anymore.

This is a completely straightforward application of existing law on privilege. To maintain privilege, among other things, communications must be confidential.

Chatting with Claude breaks confidentiality: chats with Claude are subject to arbitrary inspection by Anthropic employees, not to mention the issue of model training.

You can use self-hosted LLMs without breaking privilege. And funny enough, law firms like Latham & Watkins are now buying Nvidia GPU clusters for this purpose.

They ruled that it's like a journal, or a tool like a search engine. This seems fair.

Additionally, BCBS reports that hospitals are using AI to find ways to charge more money: https://www.bcbs.com/about-us/association-news/bcbsa-analysi...

> New analysis from the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) finds that hospital systems are increasingly billing patient hospital stays as more medically complex, driving nearly $1 billion in additional healthcare costs in just two years. [...]

> More than 60% of hospital systems are now using AI-enabled technologies that can scan lab results and electronic records to identify secondary diagnoses, which could move a patient into a higher-severity, higher-reimbursement billing category.

Always ask for your imaging data. I have never been denied it. Then take that and run it through your own analysis. Years ago I had some lab work done looking for a specific genetic marker that could explain something. While that was running I took my 23andme genome and cross referenced it with snpedia and had my answer (didn't have the marker) before my doctor did. She was blown away. This was 10 years ago. I'm guessing things have improved quite a bit.

Are there even any FDA labeled AI diagnostics for MRI? Just about everything I've seen is more things that are meant to help radiologists do things faster (and it's rather debatable whether they ultimately achieve that). The things I've seen gaining traction are very specific measurements (that are not themselves diagnostic) or things that improve workflow.

Yep one imaging center in LA is charging $45 out of pocket for the AI diagnosis.

Setting aside the unreliability of AI, healthcare is already expensive and confusing. It's hard to know what's covered or not ahead of time and it sucks to feel nickel and dimed on something that is already so expensive, especially when you consider we are not trained medical professionals, so we can't really have an informed opinion on what this is really worth...

can you say no to an AI diagnosis in that case?

Reduces the cost to the medical provider. You think that'll result in a reduced the cost on the person's bill?

Australia already has AI tax judgements:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robodebt_scheme

since we're posting pointless gotchas:

Do we pay more to a lawyer if they handwrite a legal document using expert penmanship?

and conversely, I'll pay you more if you grab a rake and not a leaf blower

Yes, because I'm expecting you to compete.

Remember that it can always get worse.

I'm sure many law companies have a trillion spare to invest in data centres. I don't think anyone would be upset if AI broke the standard charges for lawyer fees.