Robot Umps, Guards & Parole Officers
A small newsletter on legaltech
AI
From the Harvard Business Review: “AI-Generated ‘Workslop’ Is Destroying Productivity”
Legal practitioners and professors are united in their acrimony for the new citation rules for GenAI in the 22nd ed. of the Bluebook
Louisiana state appellate judge Scott Schlegel has put together a “Framework for Judicial AI Use”
From MIT Technology Review [$]: Researchers have found that AI chatbots may use retracted scientific papers to answer questions without alerting the user
The state of Oklahoma is considering a pilot program by a vendor that would use “AI, biometrics, and location tracking to monitor people on parole and probation”
From The Marshall Project: how vendors are envisioning the advent of AI & robotics into prisons and jails for mundane and highly-important tasks
“Does Attorney-Client Privilege Survive When AI Listens?”
AI and Health
Teens are increasingly turning to AI chatbots and avatars for companionship as well as emotional and mental support
Therapy patients are reacting negatively to learning that their therapists are using GenAI without notice or consent
Medical researchers in the UK and US have found that GenAI tools used in medical diagnosis and treatment tended to recommend lower levels of care to female patients, and expressed less compassion to Black and Asian patients dealing with mental health issues [The Financial Times]
Related: “Alarm: Retracted articles on cancer imaging are not only continuously cited by publications but also used by ChatGPT to answer questions”
Fabrication Follies
Bixler v. Church of Scientology Intl [David Lat | Law.com ($) | ABA Journal ($) | Docket | Motion to Leave to File A Corrected Response Brief]
CalMatters has an extensive article on Noland v. Land of the Free
Data Privacy
In a lawsuit against the city of Norfolk, VA for ‘blanket’ surveillance of vehicles by Flock cameras and automated license plate readers with “virtually no oversight,” plaintiffs allege they were tracked hundreds of times over a period of 5 months without probable cause [NBC News | Institute for Justice | Docket | Memo in Support of Motion for Summary Judgment]
Miscellaneous
Major League Baseball has approved the use of an automated ball/strike system (aka robot umpires) to start next year
A plan in Arizona to allow “people who complete two semesters of criminal law-focused classes practice for nine months under the supervision of an experienced criminal attorney, and pass a specialized exam in order to be licensed to take on criminal cases” has been withdrawn by the state Supreme Court [Reuters ($) | ABA Journal ($) | KAWC]
Long Reads
King, J., Klyman, K., Capstick, E., Saade, T. and Hsieh, V., 2025. User Privacy and Large Language Models: An Analysis of Frontier Developers' Privacy Policies. arXiv:2509.05382.