The Transcript is Confidential: Your Paid AI Instance is Not

[Misty S Bledsoe]

There was a LinkedIn post where an attorney was describing how parties in a case were requesting to see the AI history of the others involved. Arguments were made whether or not that AI history was usable in court. Part of it is and part of it is not.

I think, in the current environment, court reporters, transcriptionists, scopists, and proofreaders should not be putting confidential transcripts into AI without express written permission provided by all the attorneys involved. 

Transcripts are considered confidential. 

Do not trust a member of the legal team when they say, "Yes, we have permission on file."

You can always be subpoenaed. Your AI history can be subpoenaed. You can always be deposed. 

You want to be able to say you saw the signed, written permission from all parties involved yourself. Have the attorneys provide you with a copy of that signed, written permission.

If there are three parties to a case and two of them provided signed, written permission, but the third did not, and all three are in the transcript, do not feed that transcript into AI. One party did not consent. 

Whether or not the AI history can be used in court is only partially the issue. The greater issue is that it can be subpoenaed, and you have to answer questions about it. There's also the liability and consequence of hacking of the AI's server backup copies. 

Are you willing to face the financial and reputational fallout involved should it come to light that you did not have express permission to use AI on that transcript?

Even if you are innocent, defending yourself in court is expensive.

It's the one thing that stops me from freely sharing transcripts with AI.