Journal of Other Forum Analysis

[Uncle]

I don't even know what thread this would belong in, but fuck it since james cameron joining the dark side of AI is the topic, this is amusing

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/20/judge-sharply-criticizes-lawyers-ai-lawsuit-meta-00180348

Judge sharply criticizes lawyers for authors in AI suit against Meta

A federal judge on Friday brutally dressed down the lawyers for a group of high-profile authors who are suing Meta over the use of their work to train the company’s AI technology.

U.S. District Court Judge Vincent Chhabria accused the plaintiffs’ attorneys of dragging out litigation that may help set important guardrails for the emerging technology.

“You are not doing your job. This is an important case,” Chhabria told lead counsel Joseph Saveri during an hour-long video conference about fact-finding issues in the case. “You and your team have taken on a case that you are either unwilling or unable to litigate properly.”

“It’s very clear to me from the papers, from the docket and from talking to the magistrate judge that you have brought this case and you have not done your job to advance it,” the judge said. “You and your team have barely been litigating the case. That’s obvious….This is not your typical proposed class action. This is an important case. It’s an important societal issue. It’s important for your clients.”

Saveri and another attorney working with him told the judge they hadn’t tried to delay the case and were being blamed for agreeing to extensions Meta sought.

Last November, Chhabria threw out most of the claims in the suit, calling some of them “nonsensical.” On Friday, the judge said there was “no way” he would appoint Saveri and his co-counsel as class counsel “based on the way you’ve litigated the case so far.”

“I think what you need, frankly, is to bring in somebody who can help you litigate the case, who has the resources and the wherewithal to move this case forward…I think you need to reconstitute your legal team,” the judge said, suggesting the plaintiffs consider involving Susman Godfrey, a Houston-based firm pressing similar AI lawsuits on behalf of other authors and the New York Times.

a lot of this is because all these AI cases began as knee-jerk reactions, just saying "dey stole our art/writing!!" without understanding a single thing about how the technology works, the fact that legally it's a massive uphill battle and there probably isn't a very strong claim they could make for damages