This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Like @faceh, I too have had the displeasure of witnessing a pro se litigant attempt to argue an AI slop motion in front of a judge. A 300+ paragraph AI slop motion. It was a post-trial motion. And I heard quite a bit of it because all the litigant could do was read it verbatim. After 20 minutes, I still had no idea what the case was even about, because he evidently didn't know that lawyers have to argue the facts of the case. After it became unbearable, I realized that since a TV show was filming in one of the courtrooms a friend of mine from high school who works in the industry might be there (I run into the guy once every few years), and even if he wasn't it would give me something to do while I waited for my case to be called. Sure enough, I saw him as soon as I left the courtroom and caught up with him for about a half hour. When I came back, the guy was still reading from his brief, and the judge told him he wasn't going to listen to the whole thing and cut the guy off while he gave the defense a chance to argue. It was only then that I was able to glean that he had apparently sued Hertz rental truck for being injured on their property, and that AI evidently didn't tell him that his mother was not qualified to act as a medical witness, or prepare a proper defense to their motion in limine that would allow her to testify as a damage witness. When the judge went back to the guy for his response he just continued reading from his brief.
Honestly, I think AI actually makes things worse for pro se litigants because at least before, judges were willing to cut them some slack and argue the facts of their case in a more informal way. Their deficit was that they didn't understand the law well enough to argue the facts effectively. Now they can generate pages upon pages of legalese they don't understand but think is the magic bullet that separates them from the lawyers and that they'll be able to wow the judge with their mad legal skillz. All the judge is going to do is smile politely during their argument and rule against them, because they haven't said anything.
Here's what I think about: I've seen a pro se defendant reduce a 30-year prosecutor to tears of rage with non-stop well-written motions because the prosecutor had to respond to every single one. The defendant had been through the system a number of times and had learned enough from his trips to be able to write decent motions. He ended up getting a plea on a felony case that the prosecutor had previously swore would never happen (guy had a ton of priors, so still prison, but 1/10th of his risk after trial).
The number of defendants like that is vanishingly small. He was writing those motions from in-custody, which made it all the more impressive. The skill required to do that is very rare.
Once the AI motions get good enough, every out of custody defendant can be that guy. Perhaps the in-custody ones once they figure out a way (probably via family or friends or whatever) to access an AI outside the jail. The system is not prepared for every traffic case, misdemeanor, and felony to turn into a barrage of plausible-sounding motions.
I understand what you're saying, and while I don't practice in criminal court or (presumably) your jurisdiction, my own experience suggests that this is unlikely to happen. As we all learned in law school, the practice of law is the application of the law to the facts of the case. Traditionally, pro se litigants who don't know the law argue the facts and appeal to a vague sense of justice. LLM is the complete opposite since the LLM usually doesn't know anything about the facts but will gladly generate pages upon pages worth of vague legal arguments based on the invariably vague instructions it was given. Even a really good LLM is ultimately limited by the facts the user inputs, which, most of the time, is few to none, because they see it as just a magic box that will spit out something that looks professional but really doesn't do anything. Hence you get a guy with a 300 paragraph brief that doesn't once even hint at the general kind of case that it is.
Overall, though, while I see this as a problem, I only see it as such insofar as acting pro se is generally. If a prosecutor is reduced to tears of rage because he has to respond to endless motions from a pro se litigant and cuts a favorable deal to get out of it, I don't see how that situation is any worse than if the same prosecutor has to deal with the same thing from a team of high-priced attorneys paid for by the father of a wealthy defendant. My concern here is less for the prosecutor and more for the pro se who wastes the court's time and doesn't get a deal when he would have got one had a public defender filed the one motion that had any merit. My concern with LLMs isn't much different than my overall concern with DIY legal solutions where people think they're getting a good deal because they save a little bit of money in the short term but end up getting screwed in the long term.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Yeah, the 'deference' judges give to pro se litigants (if they are clearly unable to afford attorneys, that is) is going to backfire as it becomes more common for them to use AI for drafting basic stuff, and thus the volume of filings increases but the work of actually parsing and applying it still falls on the Judge and opposing counsel. Who will, 'ironically,' probably start using AI assistance to keep up.
The case I'm dealing with, thankfully, is a straightforward land use/partition action and the pro se party is otherwise very cooperative, but you can tell that the stuff they're filing is AI-assisted because the few times I've talked to them directly they have been unable to do anything but re-articulate their general position, and don't quite understand the processes they've chosen to invoke.
I'd hope the AIs would advise AGAINST 300 paragraph briefs, that's for sure.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link