Jill Smith

Sam Altman's Warning: Everything You Tell ChatGPT Could End Up Being Used Against You OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently said something that should grab ry lawyer's attention. Appearing on the Theo Von podcast, Altman said,” “So

www.techlawcrossroads.com/2025/07/sam-...

I truly wish we didn't have to have "the librarian's dividend" - because what I've seen is far too many experienced academics continuing to bring us citations to nonexistent materials because they still trust ChatGPT despite experience.

bsky.app/profile/cfie...

This is so awful it's actually impressive.

Black Friday
Cyber Monday
Giving Tuesday
Leave Me the Eff Alone Wednesday
Seriously Stop Sending Me Emails Thursday
I Will Cut You Friday

Welp, you know, my Georgetown colleagues all know about my sideline, so it's not like I'm being coy.

It's just more that I spend time on the author/publisher side of social media.

DC residents and workers - The 51st is doing great work and if you can afford to support, please do!

And I'll re-post from this account which is lower profile but very much more DC-centric!!

And there are tons of great RAs! But we're often the ones training them, sometimes helping to supervise them, and (yes) sometimes bailing them out when they don't get it.

"Vocational awe" is not something I love, but a sincere thank-you is not the same thing and is much appreciated.

I was reminded today that people praise librarians for doing a lot of work and "never taking credit."

No, we have no mechanism for that. But it is always really nice to see a thank-you in footnote #1 of your final article.

Too often, only the RAs (some of whom we have to bail out) get the thanks.

What perfect album came out the year I turned 16?

They weren't so used to the whole "for exposure" con, and were shocked.

I had no interest in working with such a transparently unethical outfit. I also let my team know what had happened and said, "Obviously, you can do as you like, but here's the rate I was paid >10 years ago to create and present one of these and it wasn't recorded."

A CLE company contacted me to create a legal research program FOR FREE. They also wanted the recording (and 100% of the profits) in perpetuity.

When I emailed back and said I did not work for free, they immediately asked what my rate was.

I didn't respond.

If you think that professors exist as repositories of knowledge that students ask for answers, you’re missing the entire point of a college education.

We’re here to teach students how to do research, how to analyze and argue, how to think for themselves — how to find the answers on their own.

bsky.app/profile/jasl...

I've started keeping a file on CoCounsel's errors and hallucinations. We don't use it a lot (because we already have the skills to do more efficiently in most cases what it's supposed to do for you), but it's still worrying how much I've snagged in a short time.

A CLE provider just had the gall to ask me to do an advanced legal research presentation for them without compensation.

My "no" was swift.

Just...don't do this.

I also did this: bsky.app/profile/jasl...

And in the "transcript" of the interaction, the AI reworded the original prompt!

Yes!

One of my colleagues tested it by asking CoCounsel what a law review article had to say about jury instructions. It produced a lengthy paragraph and helpfully highlighted the original.

Which had nothing at all to say about jury instructions. The entire paper was about victim impact evidence.

And that quote that doesn't exist in the original is exactly the kind of thing we've seen Westlaw's CoCounsel do.

It happened faster than I thought.

And I'm a pessimist.

A Linxicon board with a direct line between understanding and contract with the connecting word being acceptance. My other guesses were agreement and offer.

I play a game called Linxicon (linxicon.com) and I've never seen as perfect a law school board as this one:

Please point to a legal citation that says you can't "mention the color of their skin or their faith or their gender or anything else when you run against them"

Same.

Wow - after yesterday's barn-burner of a letter announcing withdrawal from AALL membership, we have the possibility of a new professional organization for law librarians?

I am intrigued.

bsky.app/profile/jasl...

And even the stuff that is specifically created for that purpose, with a limited dataset gets stuff wrong. So you have to check it, which means doing the work yourself. How exactly does this save time??

bsky.app/profile/jasl...

One problem is, with an intern or summer associate or the like, if they commit a total howler, you can sit down with them and walk them through the process, find out where they went wrong, and they can learn.

AIs can do none of this.