Sharing: Won’t AI Make Digital Court Reporting Obsolete?

Came across Reddit user elzpwetd’s post a couple of days ago. Wanted to get it some attention. More or less, the post talks about how AI already has a capacity to summarize documents very well. The idea is that the need for log notes and deposition digests done by humans would, in a perfect-AI world, disappear.

In a world where AI has been perfected, you don’t need anyone in the seat. It’s simply assistive technology to the professional lawyer. You could argue that you still need someone to set up the recording equipment, but in courts that’s often a one-and-done situation and in depositions we’re doing Zoom depos, so…

…I think [she] hits the nail on the head.

Of course, this opens up the stage to what I have said all along. AI sellers will claim the technology is perfect or ready for prime time well before it is. Case in point, in 2016, Microsoft said its AI was better than human transcribers. In 2020, AI scored as low as 25% in the racial disparities in automated speech recognition study. We’re now in 2024, and AI’s imperfections are obvious to anyone that spends enough time playing with it. On good-quality audio with standard English speakers, 100% is possible. I’ve seen it myself. It does well. Guess what? We do well under such conditions too. The conditions where humans struggle? AI becomes an unreliable nightmare that needs to be manually fixed by a human — a human that may not be able to decipher whatever garbled audio there is, which is just one good reason to have a human being taking simultaneous verbatim notes.

Still, not a problem in many cases, as our spitballers will point out. But there’s nobody tracking how many appeals bad audio has sabotaged in the United States. Ignorance is bliss and it allows court administrators to take action without knowing or caring about the potential pitfalls. Even if it’s as low as 1% of the appeals that get screwed, just looking at the federal level, I’m pretty sure we’re looking at 500 a year, which is a lot for a system where many believe it is better for 100 guilty people to go free than one innocent be convicted. And even when the stakes aren’t freedom, who wants their multimillion dollar pharmaceutical case to be blown up by an inadequate record?

Our spitballers are also habitually wrong. I’ve seen it said that our jobs only exist because we have a strong lobby. Nothing could be further from the truth. As I revealed two days ago, our “strong lobby” sabotages us whenever it thinks it can get away with it. We need look no further than the steady decline of officialships for recordings despite every indication that stenotype is a better solution for access to justice.

In a way, it would be a joy to see AI be perfected. The very people who have fought so hard for our replacement would watch their companies become relatively worthless. How long would Veritext’s court reporting revenue last with other companies selling subscriptions to unlimited transcription for less than the cost of a single deposition? Maybe that’s why all the big boxes are gouging the lawyers now while they can? Scared of the future?

I guess I was too, for a time. Maybe we’re not so different?

If I Made American Arbitration Association Rates, I’d Still Be Freelance

Stenonymous posts American Arbitration Association Rates for stenographic court reporting.

Stenonymous posts American Arbitration Association Rates for “AI-powered” transcription

Two things.

Number one, my backstory is that I come from undervalued NYC reporting where the companies used social pressure to pit us against each other. In 2010 I was making $2.80 a page. Later came to find people were making more than that in the 80s or 90s. If the corporate mooks have ever wondered why my publishing focuses so much on them and the disgusting things that they do, they need only look in a mirror. They created me. Maybe I should thank them?

It’s also why I don’t believe in irreversible shortage. Not one entity in this whole field has made a real effort to pull court reporters from undervalued NYC. The most we’ve had is our “court family” spreading the word that the New York State Unified Court System is the place to be. And guess what? When we made the effort, we fixed a localized Bronx shortage.

Number two, the American Arbitration Association is fleecing people through their Optima “service partner.”

Why? Simple business sense. If you have AI worth a damn, you run audio through the system, it pops out a finished product, and you send it off. You could literally pay one person to handle hundreds of transcripts a day. You would not, by any stretch of the human imagination, need $3.95 per page. So it’s pretty clear to me that they’re likely using human transcribers to fix AI garbage and calling it AI-powered. Human-powered AI, brought to you by Liars Incorporated.

Please don’t take this as me saying we are irreplaceable though. We are 100% replaceable. It might not be right, fair, business savvy, or technologically sound, but they could do it. I mean, look at VITAC, despite knowing that it would mean lesser quality for the people they serve, they fired a bunch of stenographers, or so I heard some time ago. They can do whatever they want. The only thing that might deter them from doing whatever they want is backlash, pushback, a fight. People are conflict avoidant. It’s in all the surveys and studies. In a room of 100 people, maybe 6 are fighters, so there’s a good chance whoever’s sitting in the boss seat isn’t a real fighter and will cave to pressure. It’s as simple as that when it comes to our continued existence. The people above us need to know, understand, feel, and believe that we will absolutely drag them down with us without mercy or remorse. They take advantage of our silence and compliance. They take advantage of our kindness and compassion. They take advantage of our willingness to live and let live.

No longer, I say. This is what I bring to the table. I use the money you send me to fight for you using the best communication network on Earth, the internet. I’m good at it. I have a style my allies can trust and my enemies underestimate. It’s something so deliberate that I’m curious whether my closest friends really understand why I do some of what I do. You know how people used to say don’t write anything in an email you wouldn’t want read in court? There’s another simple truth. Write anything someone else wouldn’t want read in court, and suddenly you become untouchable. And in fact the best of my work goes largely unsung and never ends up on Stenonymous because of that.

Not my fault. I didn’t design things this way. But here I am. Hello, world.

Christopher Day makes himself a meme, because why not?

Christopher Day shares a reaction to a meme of his face.

“Throw me all your shade but I’ma own it
I’ma want to Edgar Allen Poe it
Not up for discussion, I’ma close it
Yeah, you don’t want me to be your opponent.”

–Voices by Vanessa Campagna

Gizmodo: Amazon Fresh’s AI Was Indians Watching the Cameras…And It Still Didn’t Work

I’m sensationalizing a bit this time.

Gizmodo notes that though the Just Walk Out technology seemed completely automated, there were actually 1,000 people in India watching the cameras and labeling videos. The whole idea was you could walk in, scan a QR code, take what you want, and leave. They’d track what you were buying.

Now Amazon wants to use Dash Carts, “smart” shopping carts.

What can I say? When you have effectively unlimited money you can spend your time dreaming up ways to replace people who work for a living. And if that’s your job, screw you.

Let’s just state what the writer, Maxwell Zeff, seems to go to great lengths not to say in the Gizmodo article. They had to walk out “Just Walk Out” because it was running away with their money. Otherwise, they would have kept it. Though one of my people on social media said it might be kind of mocking them in a way that I just didn’t perceive in the way it was written.

Don’t you love how they’d rather employ a thousand Indians than a few cashiers in each store?

Don’t you love that even abject failures of AI are spun by media to be positive stories? Even if it’s correct that it was some kind of joke, it was totally believable.

The level of self-delusion in this country rivals my medical episode. These people wouldn’t say a bad word about big business if it was pointing a gun in their face.

I guess it’s close enough. According to a Siena College Research Institute poll in 2022, 84% say Americans being afraid to exercise freedom of speech is a serious problem.

Having your ability to make money and provide for your family hampered by your pro-business boss because you might say the wrong thing is kind of like having a gun to your head. It’s just a bullet that would kill much slower and much more painfully as your family descended from middle class to poverty or poverty to homelessness, if you couldn’t bounce back fast enough.

Growing wealth disparity in this country ensures there will be more stories like that. My family could no longer afford a home that had been in the family for 60 years in part because the policy in this country had largely been engineered to drain as much money as possible from the middle class. Call me a has-been homeowner. I lost the game as gracefully as I could at the time.

But back to that Siena poll, retaliation was just one fear. People were also afraid of things like being criticized and causing conflict. Something like 94% avoided conflict.

The people of the past rebelled because taxes on tea were too high, and our docile little hearts can’t even be bothered to hear mean words and fight back against our most basic freedoms being stripped in increasingly creative ways — in this case by Indians dressed as technology. No offense to Indians.

Steal from people and they’ll form neighborhood watches to hunt you down and lynch you. We know that from history. Well, if we’re really honest, we’d lynch even if there was no crime committed, if circumstances were right. (Yeah. Those circumstances. May we never forget.)

Write laws to steal from people and they’ll let you do it unabated for decades. And defend you doing it.

The people reading this blog might be in the top 6%.

Thanks for being there.

Court bans use of AI-enhanced video.

P.S.

I wanted a permanent place on the internet for my wedding vow so the bottom of this article now becomes that place.

Contrary to the rumors, ChatGPT did not write this. I poured my heart into it, and everyone at my wedding really loved it.

“There are many things I can tell you that could never be shared with another soul. But this is something that I need to say now in front of all the souls here today. I had never met someone with a heart so big it could hug the world. I had no experience knowing someone with so much compassion, creativity, intelligence, beauty, and kindness. That is, of course, until I met you. Now we are making a promise that will stretch into eternity. In front of all these people, let me promise that I will love and protect you always. Every step I take will advance our bond. Every minute without you will be fleeting. Every second with you will be cherished.

And every time we close our eyes, let us dream of a future that is as strong and radiant as your smile. When those eyes open, let us wake to find our dreams a reality. Francesca, my beautiful wife, you taught me love, I love you, and I will love you for the rest of my life.”

Jon Stewart on AI: They’re Already Having an Arms Race to See Who Will Be the Monopoly.

More Perfect Union posted a clip of Jon Stewart talking to Federal Trade Commission Chairperson Lina Khan.

This was so incredibly moving to me that I had to transcribe it. Lina Khan masterfully puts into words what I’ve been trying to communicate for a long time. Government is just one area where we must worry about the concentration of power and the looming threat of autocracy or autocrat-like power. The knowledge that we need to guard against the rise of “economic autocrats” has existed in this country for over 100 years. I feel there are parallels to our field. We are merely on a lower level in terms of the money at stake.

It still pains me to believe our issues are too small for the FTC to care about and too big for the state agencies to want to look at. But I acknowledge the good work it’s trying to do after decades of minimal antitrust enforcement.

I provide a plain text version below and then a download of the PDF:

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Partial transcript of Jon Stewart speaking to Lina Khan, Chairperson of the Federal Trade Commission.

Transcribed by Christopher Day, Stenonymous.com.

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MR. STEWART: It’s already being consolidated. Apple has bought 30 AI models. Microsoft has probably bought ‑‑ Google has bought ‑‑ they all buy AI startups and put them behind their paywall. And they’re already having an arms race to see who will be either the monopoly or this will be oligopoly.

I’ve got to tell you, I wanted to have you on a podcast, and Apple asked us not to do it, to have you. They literally said, “please, don’t talk to her.” Having nothing to do with what you do for a living. I think they just ‑‑ I didn’t think they cared for you, is what happened. They ‑‑ they wouldn’t ‑‑ they didn’t ‑‑ they wouldn’t let us do even that dumb thing we just did in the first act, on AI.

Like, what is that sensitivity? Why are they so afraid to even have these conversations out in the public sphere?

MS. KHAN: I think it just shows one of the dangers of what happens when you concentrate so much power and so much decision making in a small number of companies.

I mean, going back all the way to the founding, there was a recognition that in the same way you need the Constitution to create checks and balances in our political sphere ‑‑

MR. STEWART: Right.

MS. KHAN: ‑‑ you also needed the antitrust and antimonopoly laws to safeguard against concentration of economic power, because you don’t want an autocrat of trade in the same way that you don’t want a monarch.

MR. STEWART: But then it took them ‑‑ I mean, it wasn’t until the Sherman Act in, what, 1890 something…

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End of clip shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, by More Perfect Union on April 2, 2024.

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DOWNLOAD:

Jon-Stewart-Speaks-to-Lina-Khan Download

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Now for some creative musing:

Educated by my country,

I could only watch in horror as

the knowledge of the past was swept aside.

They called us the most educated generation.

Then did not heed our words.

Our keepers said we could be anything.

Then voted for those that would leave us nothing.

The generations before us? Conditioned.

Conditioned to believe hard work is virtuous.

From a time when you could trust the television.

From a time when you had the television.

A time when hard work was rewarded better.

Loyalty ran both ways.

Was that a lie too?

Hard work is the only thing I’ve ever known.

Indeed, every person should know what it is to reach down deep and try hard.

Because otherwise the heart does not beat.

Because before I did, but after my birth, I was not alive.

But letting others harm your children is wrong.

The television did not tell or envision the real dangers.

Allowing predators to prey upon our American Dream.

And I understand. The world is different from when you walked it.

And I will miss you.

Those children you fought for?

I will fight for them in a way society never let you.

Because one day I may have my own.

They will have to learn to live and love alongside the other children.

They will have to play and grow in the world that we design.

Design by our action.

Design by our inaction.

Design by our empathy.

Design by our psychopathy.

They will know their father tried to change the country that would educate them.

For the better.

They will know their mother wanted their American Dream to be lucid.

So that they could be anything.

To those that would deride those like us:

“Though our songs may never be sung,

our stories will echo into eternity.”

Shameless plug for Patriots Against Corporatism, a concept that would unite left-leaning and right-leaning folks into a movement that defends our freedom against “autocrats of trade.”

Addendum:

I was later sent this TikTok with more from Jon Stewart on AI.

AI Will Revolutionize Court Reporting, You’ll See!*

*This is a creative writing exercise meant to make the reader think. While it will talk about real world things, it does so in a way that is meant to be funny-ish, dark humor. One of my readers mentioned these joke posts can be unpleasant because the reveal comes at the end. We’re going to try doing it at the beginning now.**

AI has been used as a buzzword to milk investors for years now. It’s only natural that the tiny court reporting industry follow suit. After all, AI has never killed anyone or gotten them raped in jail. What could go wrong when we’re dealing with the accuracy of court records and the strength of meritorious appeals? After all, all trials result in a perfect verdict all the time. The system never goofs.

Look at how AI improved medical transcription. It made sure your doctor’s eyes are on that transcription during your appointment. What? You want them to examine YOU? Quality care is not part of the Leonard Green model of looting hospitals for poor people. Similarly, Leonard Green asset, Veritext, continues its push to lower quality wherever profitable.

From 95% in 2016 to 25% in 2020, technology is exponential, so there’s nothing you can do, just give us your jobs. Actually, no, just come work for us for less. Digital reporting is the future. You can just take less money to clean up our ASR. And that’s progress because then your money is in our wallet.

Look, even if you think there may be some quality issues with the AI stuff, it’s inevitable. These folks have more money than us. There’s definitely no world where court reporters make so much noise about digital reporting that the cost of advertising for digitals outweighs the cost of not being a scheming dickhead. No, that could never happen.

Give up and do nothing. That is the way of the “virtuous person.”

Si vis pacem, para bellum.

**So that whole private equity thing where the companies buy, hold, and sell other companies, it’s a cool way to make money. But as it turns out, my blog has been increasing investor knowledge too. Big box might not be able to sucker another firm into buying their company. This might become one of so many leads that turns into a big nothing burger, but stay tuned.

Addendum:

Following this post, a valued reader sent me this, showing the Florida Bar seems to be aware of AI pitfalls, and this, indicating that the FTC is looking at the potential power of the “Big AI” cartel.

Another valued reader pointed out the Taylor Swift AI controversy.

I Made A Computer Program That Types Faster Than Any Stenographer Alive

In full disclosure, I’ve made two. (YouTube)(TikTok)

If you follow me on social media, you’ve likely seen these before, but the point still stands: Companies can make outrageous claims about their technology. It’s down to consumers to “trust, but verify.”

The joke is that in both videos I go on and on about how my programs are better than stenographers because they “type faster.” And they do. But the trick is that one is making up gibberish transcripts and the other is retyping text that it’s already been given. So I’m going “yeah, this technology is FASTER!” But that doesn’t mean anything. It can never take your job. It doesn’t learn. It’s a simple script I wrote that anyone can play with online.

Similarly, with AI, be wary about claims. To those not in the know, it seems like magic. Those in the know have an economic incentive to tell you it is magic and that you should buy it. Same goes for your clients.

All we can do is educate each other on propaganda techniques and march forward.

If any attorneys are watching, “they’ll” tell you we’re replaceable long before we are, as they have been for about 50 years. You guys cross-examine liars all day, so I’m sure you can figure this one out.

Most stenographers become work-ready at 225 words per minute

Zoom Can Now Use Your Content to Train Its AI…And You’re Not Allowed to Opt Out

This article from StackDiary was passed to me by a longtime Stenonymous reader. This paragraph captured it all for me.

StackDiary post claims Zoom’s updated terms of service allow for the company to use users’ data without an opt-out option.

This has me thinking about the captioners. If you are feeding captions through Zoom, can it be used by the company to train AI to do what you do? In recent years, I am a skeptic that believes it may be impossible for AI to reach the levels of accuracy of a qualified captioner. But the possibility is there, and it already has one New York business owner talking. When asked about it, Joshua Edwards, co-owner of StenoCaptions LLC, said “Wendy and I, co-owners at StenoCaptions LLC, are already talking about not working in Zoom anymore. As highly trained stenographers who are committed to excellence, we’re not going to train our replacement.”

I also reached out to Norma Miller from White Coat Captioning. “I’m told that they have backed off on this already late [Monday] following the huge backlash online. However, my trust in them has been irreparably damaged, so I will not be backing down from my company’s official policy, a copy of which is attached. It will be a minor inconvenience to some clients if they choose to continue using Zoom, but it is the best solution we have available to us at this time, and it works really well.”

As for the attached policy, take a look.

Official policy of White Coat Captioning regarding Zoom’s change in policy, which allowed no opt-out option.

I’m hopeful to get the discussion rolling. Blog posts with pictures get a lot more attention, so I picked out one that I hope helps bring attention to this important issue.

Stenonymous versus AI at Stenonymous.com

Addendum:

After this post went live I was sent information by an accessibility advocate I follow on Twitter. It appears that the platform will not use “chat” content to change its AI. Big thanks to Meryl Evans.

(Meryl on LinkedIn)

The National Court Reporters Association later made a Facebook post on this topic.

Tech Expert: AI Hallucination Is Not Fixable

Hopefully by now most people have heard that ChatGPT and similar language models can confidently pump out falsehoods.

Came across this really interesting article in Fortune. Emily Bender, a linguistics professor and director of the University of Washington’s Computational Linguistic’s Laboratory, is quoted as saying the AI hallucinations that ChatGPT experiences are not fixable.

Yet what’s the next thing the article talks about? It claims the McKinsey Global Institute projects AI will add somewhere around $3 trillion to $4 trillion to the economy. It talks about how Google is offering up similar technology to news media companies. It talks about how Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT, is optimistic about the technology, and quoted another CEO, Shane Orlick of Jasper AI, as saying “hallucinations are actually an added bonus.”

“Hey, this doesn’t work right, and the issue doesn’t seem fixable.” “FULL STEAM AHEAD, it’ll be better for the economy and the things it gets wrong are actually a good thing!” How deluded are these people? And when does it become socially acceptable to tell someone they’re full of crap? Never? Well then I guess we’ll just continue to live in a world where big money can lie on an industrial scale and never be held accountable.

This is not unlike our field, where AI can and does confidently pump out wrong words. We learned that AI wasn’t as good as us, particularly on the African American Vernacular English dialect, from the Racial Disparities in Automatic Speech Recognition 2020 study. AI scored as low as 25% in that study. When we were tested in the Testifying While Black study, we were about 80% accurate. When we broadcasted that in professional circles, the big money in our field ignored it and kept with their agenda. After all, what kind of monster would let science, facts, and egalitarianism stand in the way of a corporate operation designed to push the market in a singular direction?

Succinctly, it is not the most meritorious narrative that seizes the day, but the strongest. That’s why tech continues to pump out the message that it’s going to be a massive boon to the economy. Who cares if it’s true? It keeps investor money flowing, avoids AI winter, and that money gives them more legitimacy as they keep pumping out the aforementioned message that then lures in more investors and money. That’s also why I sought funding from the field. Our message could overpower big box on the digital v steno debate, and then, right or wrong, we’d be victorious, and the win would be self-reinforcing. Not a single corporation in the market today would dare to do the dishonest and illegal things I’ve documented over the last few years.

It makes me wonder if the answer is to “corporatize” our media and seek shareholders. I’ll take answers in the comments if anyone will share. For those of you that don’t donate, would you put some money on the table if there was a return involved? How much money? How much return? For those of you that do donate, feel free to answer too. There is some reason to suspect a corporate accountability media company would be successful. It’s been said that millennials alone are going to be 75% of the workforce by 2025, and millennials have a lot of reasons to love corporate accountability — the main one being that, rhetorically, there hasn’t been any since we were born. Monetize what people want, get the shareholders some money, and do it with a flavor that distinguishes us from nonprofits in the space.

We can see with our own eyes that there is no position too absurd for big money. We can also see how an internet campaign by one guy with some hardcore supporters can run circles around big money. Combining these two ideas, why not run circles around big money for big money?

I’d do it. Who’s with me?

Stenonymous Propaganda is Now Automated*

A complete calendar is a happy calendar.

A compliant court reporter is a happy court reporter.

Resist. You can’t win if you don’t play.

The newest in court reporting technology.

The best technology in tilting tripods brought to you by the Stenographic Society of America.

Conform. Trust the system. It’s always been this way.

The working court reporter. Confident and assertive.

Take care of your hands. They are your money makers.

The happiest reporters work for big box.

The OpenSteno Flatsy is taking the world by storm.

If you don’t keep up with your software updates you won’t be at the top of your game.

*None of this is real. It’s a project called Stenonymous Satire Weekends, designed to get into search engines and expose corporate fraud in court reporting. This one’s a little more performative than usual, but I hope you enjoyed it.

P.S. The artwork is so bad because it’s AI art. Now seeking independently contracted artist for stenography propaganda posters with equal rights to share and distribute given to us both. Request 1 image per month at $100 per poster image and 90% of support purchases. (Images will be made public, but there will be a designated space on the site for people to buy the image to support your work.) Estimated term of arrangement is one year. Terms negotiable. Write Chris@stenonymous.com.

Ai-Media Claims LEXI 3.0 Rivals Human Captioning at a Fraction of the Cost

Ai-Media acquired Alternative Communication Services in May 2020. According to the recollection of one source, there was a little buzz about it at the time and there were some who were concerned about the replacement of captioning providers and some that didn’t believe such a thing would happen. Well, they’ve been touting something called LEXI 3.0.

“…uses the power of AI to deliver results rivaling human captions, at a fraction of the cost.” – Ai-Media

“Sad to see this. Rivalling human captioners? You have (or had) an amazing team there — please don’t sell them short in the name of profit.” – Mike Rowell, RDR

This wasn’t the only post done on the matter.

“…AI to deliver results rivalling human captions, at a fraction of the cost.” – Ai-Media

So, I guess I really have to say to captioners what I have said to court reporters. If I get some funding behind me there’s a lot we can do. We could sponsor independent studies into the accuracy of AI versus human transcribers/captioners. What we have so far in that department is promising.

But even short of that level of funding, we could do more advertising to increase public awareness about misleading technology claims and perceptions, something that is hitting mainstream media right now. After all, as I reported on this blog, Microsoft said they had achieved tech as good as human transcribers back in 2016. Then it flopped in the Racial Disparities in Automatic Speech Recognition 2020 study. Verbit flip-flopped between its series A and series B funding, first talking about saving on manual labor and then saying that they would not take the human transcriber out. So now when Ai-Media claims its LEXI 3.0 is rivaling human transcribers, it makes me wonder if this might be just another claim that they’re using to sell, sell, sell.

The best part? They don’t even have to lie to mislead. Check out the post above. “The world’s most advanced and accurate automatic captioning solution!” This is what’s referred to in legal circles as puffery. Even if it’s BS, it’s probably not false advertising. “Watch our video to see how LEXI 3.0 uses the power of AI to deliver results rivalling human captions, at a fraction of the cost.” Well, anybody can declare something rivals something. I declare apples rival oranges and Stenonymous rivals Veritext. It doesn’t mean anything. At the end of the day, if the AI gets 40% and captioners get 90%, they still rival each other, it’s just that one would be a really poor rival. At a fraction of the cost? Does that mean all of the cost savings are passed directly to consumers? It sure isn’t a guarantee.

This is why I’m so forward about educating reporters on marketing tricks and propaganda techniques. We are all subjected to media that influences our thoughts, and those thoughts go on to influence our actions. If a person is constantly inundated with the message that technology is exponentially growing and that it’s coming for all the jobs, they won’t seek out information that challenges that belief, like all the links I posted above that most people probably skip over out. Thanks confirmation bias and busy schedules.

Meanwhile, there’s a totally alternate reality where we start dumping money into calling out these companies and working out exactly how true their claims are so that we can share it with the world.

Captioners, Stenonymous is on your side.

And yes, that’s an example of propaganda. But it’s also true.