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Why is legaltech so disappointing?: Difference between revisions

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Why is legaltech so disappointing? (view source)

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{{a|tech|}}:''“Unlike a covered call, which is about promising to sell what you actually own, a naked call is about promising to sell what you don’t actually own.
{{a|tech|{{image|Tipp-Ex|jpg|For your monitor, sir.}}}}:''“Unlike a covered call, which is about promising to sell what you actually own, a naked call is about promising to sell what you don’t actually own.


:''Like wearing a nice sweatshirt, learning the lingo, and hanging out at a hackerspace with a code editor open, looking the part, but only scrambling to learn a new skill if somebody actually hints they might want to hire you if their funding comes through in a few months.
:''Like wearing a nice sweatshirt, learning the lingo, and hanging out at a hackerspace with a code editor open, looking the part, but only scrambling to learn a new skill if somebody actually hints they might want to hire you if their funding comes through in a few months.
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And so he does.  
And so he does.  
===Music as the exemplar===
If you want to see real AI and really powerful algorithms at work have a look at modern music production software.


Aside: If you want to see real AI and really powerful algorithms at work have a look at modern music production software.<ref>The [[AI]] drummer Apple’s [[Logic Pro X]] is ''unbelievable''.</ref> The tech is genuinely ground-breaking, the user interface is designed to be run without interference by the user; the expectation is ''no [[software as a service|software-as-a-service]]'' ''because the software is so intuitive you don’t need any service''.
IK Multimedia's Amplitube and Tonex emulates and models any guitar amplifier (including your own!), down to the cabinet, speaker, microphone, placement (off/on axis!) and hall dynamics.  


Apple's Drummer can play along even with my dyspraxic time-keeping, inserting fills and anticipating bars, turnarounds, choruses and middle-eights.
AI can (and does) exactly replicate Tony Visconti's “Bowie Histrionics” microphone set up at Hansa Studios in Berlin.
Izotope automatically mixes and masters — this is truly a dark art that no ordinary mortal can do — compressing, limiting, dynamically equalising — it even replicates the production values your favourite Trevor Horn reference track.
In short, everything you need to recreate Abbey Road studios: its acoustics, amplifiers, mics, pianos, synths, analogue keyboards, autotune, the BBC orchestra, compression, limiting, mixing and mastering — everything can be done inside a laptop, thanks to the power of AI and algorithm, using software that costs less than a couple of grand. 
The better question: why is AI elsewhere so much ''worse'' than that what currently exists in music production.
We wonder if what is going on here is a basic misunderstanding of sensible and silly applications of [[AI]].
AI ''assisting'' artists to make art — fulfilling limited, directed tasks, as do the music applications listed above — is liberating and expansionary. It lets human creators get on with the interesting parts of the creative process, while outsourcing the drudgerous and technical ones to a machine that won't complain or get them wrong, and will basically follow human instructions.  The artist remains in executive control of the enterprise.
But [[AI]] ''replacing'' artists to make art is, after half an hour, rubbish, unless you like a horse with three legs, one of which comes out of its head. AI legal tech is, out of the gate, rubbish, and basically good for nothing.
No-one wants music that can write itself. ''Writing music is fun''. Artists don't create good music or paint good pictures in order to generate commoditisable art: that is the goal of music ''publishing'': that is a second order derivative of art — commercial activity that depends on art. Artists write and paint because they have something to say. It is a very human impulse to project. Creating is what enlightened human beings were designed for. Asking algorithms to create music misses the basic ''point'' of music, which is human: a cultural sharing and a non-verbal conveyance of mood and sentiment between people.  It is to skip the creative process altogether and go straight to publishing. The thing that the commercial activity at first depended on is ''missing''.
If you want random, machine-generated rhythmic noise you don't need AI: you just need a sewing machine.
The other amazing thing about music tech is the absence of rent extraction. The software is designed to be run by the user without help, intermediation or a “service”; the expectation is ''no [[software as a service|software-as-a-service]]'' ''because the software is so good you don’t need any service''.
===What [[reg tech]] ''ought'' to do===
*'''[[Yngwie Malmsteen paradox|Allows infinite flexibility]]''': In the olden days you needed a typist with some carbon paper: there was a real cost to manipulating words. You were trained to be economical.  {{yngwie malmsteen paradox capsule}}
*'''[[Yngwie Malmsteen paradox|Allows infinite flexibility]]''': In the olden days you needed a typist with some carbon paper: there was a real cost to manipulating words. You were trained to be economical.  {{yngwie malmsteen paradox capsule}}


*'''Doesn’t [[disintermediate]]''': the heat signature of the information revolution is its capacity to ''[[disintermediation|disintermediate]]''. Suddenly, any random could publish anything to anyone, free of charge. Teenagers in London could engage manufacturers in Pakistan to produce custom cricket merchandise.<ref>if you want some top cricket gear at great prices hit up @arborcricket on instagram. </ref> Fat middle aged lawyers can partially fulfil teenage dreams to be record rock music and publish it to the world.<ref>[[Dangerboy]]: potential audience : 7 billion. Actual audience: 1. ''But that's not the point.''</ref> But, inside the [[great steampunk machine|great steampunk Bolshevik machine]] that is a modern financial services firm, the organisational psychology militates against it. The great orthodoxy will insist on total top-down control in the form a bureaucratic chain of command: procurement, internal [[IT]], [[Chief Operating Officer|management]], a process literally intended to remove the optionality, flexibility and improvisational utility that disintermediation promises: whatever value the concept had will be bloated, deprecated, rigidised and commoditised to the point where using it is a ''chore''. This is not how it was meant to be. Few successful innovations in the history of the world have made things ''more [[tedious]]'' for workers than they already were.
*'''[[Disintermediate]]. Like, ''really'' disintermediate.''': the heat signature of the information revolution is its capacity to ''[[disintermediation|disintermediate]]''. Suddenly, any random could publish anything to anyone, free of charge. Teenagers in London could engage manufacturers in Pakistan to produce custom cricket merchandise.<ref>if you want some top cricket gear at great prices hit up @arborcricket on instagram. </ref> Fat middle aged lawyers can partially fulfil teenage dreams to be record rock music and publish it to the world.<ref>[[Dangerboy]]: potential audience : 7 billion. Actual audience: 1. ''But that’s not the point.''</ref> But, inside the [[great steampunk machine|great steampunk Bolshevik machine]] that is a modern financial services firm, the organisational psychology militates against it. The great orthodoxy will insist on total top-down control in the form a bureaucratic chain of command: procurement, internal [[IT]], [[Chief Operating Officer|management]], a process literally intended to remove the optionality, flexibility and improvisational utility that disintermediation promises: whatever value the concept had will be bloated, deprecated, rigidised and commoditised to the point where using it is a ''chore''. This is not how it was meant to be. Few successful innovations in the history of the world have made things ''more [[tedious]]'' for workers than they already were.
*'''[[Software as a service]]''': Software developers — especially bad ones — have no greater interest in disintermediating themselves from their product than do their Marxist paymasters. For re-[[intermediation]] — I beg your pardon: [[software as a service]]<ref>Did I say software as a service? I mean ''[[rent-seeking as a service]]''.</ref> — ''is how they take their cut''. They are [[rentier]]s. This would be more defensible were the [[reg tech]] products they flog unique, imaginative or even any good, but they tend to be generic and underwhelming. The real special sauce comes from the ''[[user]]'' painstakingly ''training'' the software to do its bidding. A clever vendor will harness that training, repackage it and sell it to other clients as the “service” the software is providing. This is an excellent [[chiz]], by the way: charging one client to train your stupid software so you can flog it to another client, who will train it a bit more, so you can flog it to ''another'' cl ... Well, you get the point.
*'''[[Software as a service]]''': Software developers — especially bad ones — have no greater interest in disintermediating themselves from their product than do their Marxist paymasters. For re-[[intermediation]] — I beg your pardon: [[software as a service]]<ref>Did I say software as a service? I mean ''[[rent-seeking as a service]]''.</ref> — ''is how they take their cut''. They are [[rentier]]s. This would be more defensible were the [[reg tech]] products they flog unique, imaginative or even any good, but they tend to be generic and underwhelming. The real special sauce comes from the ''[[user]]'' painstakingly ''training'' the software to do its bidding. A clever vendor will harness that training, repackage it and sell it to other clients as the “service” the software is providing. This is an excellent [[chiz]], by the way: charging one client to train your stupid software so you can flog it to another client, who will train it a bit more, so you can flog it to ''another'' cl ... Well, you get the point.
*'''Doesn’t provide user flexibility''': [[policy]] will see to that. The product will calcify, it is too hard, requiring too many approvals and too many business cases to develop.  
*'''Doesn’t provide user flexibility''': [[policy]] will see to that. The product will calcify, it is too hard, requiring too many approvals and too many business cases to develop.  
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*'''Don't be a [[rentier]]''': How do I make money off something which is basically a simple idea that doesn’t require a lot of maintenance? The whole point of this tech is it is meant to be labour saving, right? I can’t do it per unit - the whole point is to eliminate the cost of having meatware do manual, repetitive tasks, and — once you have set it up — there is no actual cost to having a machine do it. So trying to act like a [[rentier]] is (a) a dick move and (b) is going to get you killed, because your big idea isn’t that flash, and someone will do it, and undercut you. See {{author|Roger Martin}}’s the {{br|The Design of Business: Why Design is the Next Competitive Advantage}}
*'''Don't be a [[rentier]]''': How do I make money off something which is basically a simple idea that doesn’t require a lot of maintenance? The whole point of this tech is it is meant to be labour saving, right? I can’t do it per unit - the whole point is to eliminate the cost of having meatware do manual, repetitive tasks, and — once you have set it up — there is no actual cost to having a machine do it. So trying to act like a [[rentier]] is (a) a dick move and (b) is going to get you killed, because your big idea isn’t that flash, and someone will do it, and undercut you. See {{author|Roger Martin}}’s the {{br|The Design of Business: Why Design is the Next Competitive Advantage}}
*'''Remember the [[meatware]]''': If you convert your [[Meatware|user]] experience from “answering nuanced legal questions” into “completing a mandatory questionnaire”, you have lost. [[Document assembly]] applications: I’m talking to you. You are trying to make humans behave like machines. That is stupid. ''Humans aren’t good at emulating machines''.  Humans are better than machines precisely because they aren’t machine-like. If you have reduced your process to a rules-based questionnaire, ''you don’t need humans at all''. Get a machine to do it - hook it up to the trading system directly.  
*'''Remember the [[meatware]]''': If you convert your [[Meatware|user]] experience from “answering nuanced legal questions” into “completing a mandatory questionnaire”, you have lost. [[Document assembly]] applications: I’m talking to you. You are trying to make humans behave like machines. That is stupid. ''Humans aren’t good at emulating machines''.  Humans are better than machines precisely because they aren’t machine-like. If you have reduced your process to a rules-based questionnaire, ''you don’t need humans at all''. Get a machine to do it - hook it up to the trading system directly.  
[[File:Tipp-Ex.jpg|thumb|left|For your monitor, sir.]]
===What reg tech ''should'' do===
===What reg tech ''should'' do===
The aim of [[reg tech]] should be to work with lawyers and to respect this divide between things machines are good at (accurately, cheaply and quickly following orders) and things the meatware is good at (interpretation; judgment; lateral thinking; dealing with conundrums; figuring out what to do when the instructions run out), and to divide labour accordingly:  
The aim of [[reg tech]] should be to work with lawyers and to respect this divide between things machines are good at (accurately, cheaply and quickly following orders) and things the meatware is good at (interpretation; judgment; lateral thinking; dealing with conundrums; figuring out what to do when the instructions run out), and to divide labour accordingly:  
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