jacobheller

Very slick and potentially very powerful. After a few minutes playing with it, I have a few recommendations:

- Variables should have more types, like an array of objects

- Prompting should incorporate Jinja2/Nunjucks

- For every prompt, I should be able to create many different test examples, along with an answer key, and measure how well it does across many tests

- It should auto-save. I did a lot of prompting work and then clicked another icon. When I came back, all my work was gone. (In fact, I don't see where to save at all! Maybe I'm just missing it.)

Casetext | Software Engineer, Research Scientist, Machine Learning Engineers, and More | San Francisco, CA | ONSITE

This is an insanely fun time to join us. If you are interested in search, NLP, recommender engines, cutting-edge front-end technologies, or making a difference through your work, you should check us out.

Our open positions are here: https://jobs.lever.co/casetext/

Our startup, Casetext (YCS13) was mentioned a few times here, so I thought I'd stop in.

The crux of the article is that most legal research solutions have ignored the immense power contained in the links between laws:

> Laws frequently reference other laws in order to reuse definitions, introduce exceptions, or make it clear that two concepts are meant to work together. Consequential laws tend to get referenced in other laws as their influence spreads throughout the legal system. Experienced lawyers build up detailed mental maps of these links, allowing them to jump immediately to core issues of complex legal problems.

> However, most laws can only be searched using the dark-age, Lycos strategy—guess at keywords and hope—and it’s often necessary to pay for even that limited functionality.

We at Casetext are taking a very different approach than the "dark-age, Lycos strategy" that you have to pay for:

1. On Casetext, the law is free, as is basic search. Honestly, it's insane that Westlaw and LexisNexis charge as much as they do for basic keyword search over a database that should have been free to begin with.

2. We make money by charging for advanced, data-driven ways that lawyers can research more efficiently. CARA, our premium product, enables a lawyer to drag-and-drop upload a document they're working on, and will recommend the research that the lawyer missed but is very relevant to what they're working on (https://casetext.com/cara). A key ingredient behind this awesome tech is the network of citations that the article mentions.

Whether it's us or other startups, I agree with the article that in the next few years you'll see a trend towards more "Google for Law" -- companies will make legal research free, and their comparative advantage will be on their technology, often driven by ML/AI. As a lawyer/coder, it's a pretty exciting time to be in the space.

Oh yeah, and we're hiring! https://casetext.com/jobs

As of Tuesday at midnight, here's what you see at http://upvoted.com: http://i.imgur.com/KsnPvXN.png

Here's the full text of the case for those interested: https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-bentley-13

A really good book to read on the subject is AnnaLee Saxenian's Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128 (http://www.amazon.com/Regional-Advantage-Culture-Competition...). It discusses why Route 128 failed while Silicon Valley flourished. A major part is that under California law, non-competes are not enforceable in California. As people moved freely between competing companies, their ideas, information, and best practices traveled with them. The diffusion of good ideas gave the region as a whole a competitive edge.

For what it's worth, the author, Ira Rothken, has been litigating these cases for well over a decade. Notably, he is Kim Dotcom's lawyer for Megaupload-related litigation. It's really cool that he's sharing some creative thoughts about the different safe harbors ISPs can use to fight copyright claims.

Sigh indeed. The CFAA is a scary statute and it's being used in all kinds of ways.

Keep in mind that there are a lot of lawsuits that are done for strategic reasons, even where the factual grounding isn't super strong. I'm not saying that's necessarily happening here, but it could be the case.

Cool site -- totally missed it before. Adding it to my bookmarks!

Probably the best, general-interest resource for long-form reading is Medium: https://medium.com

If you're looking for long-form reading about interesting legal topics specifically, then the site I founded, Casetext (YC S13, https://casetext.com) is a great resource. You can visit individual communities of lawyers and find some pretty fantastic stuff. The communities that have really taken off include criminal law (https://casetext.com/communities/criminal-law), employment and labor law (https://casetext.com/communities/employment-law), and torts/product liability (https://casetext.com/communities/tort-law). There are also articles on the most recent important Supreme Court cases, like the same-sex marriage case (https://casetext.com/obergefell-v-hodges). You can also browse and read some other interesting form of long-form content, like court cases (e.g., https://casetext.com/case/lotus-development-corp-v-borland-i..., an interesting classic on software and copyrights).

Enjoy reading!

Although a very "legal" issue, whether people have "standing" (i.e., the ability to sue in court) companies for data breaches will end up having ramifications for how seriously companies take security concerns. Really interesting breakdown of some of the recent cases.

Yeah, I hear you.

I guess one other way these things are exclusive is that they drive up costs for sharing economy companies. Some of these companies are pricing so low that they are barely making a profit as it is. If their costs are even higher, they will have to drive up prices, and at least part of their appeal immediately vanishes. At least a few of the companies will die if that happens.