Here’s the kitchen sink for December 20, 2024 of ten stories that I didn’t get to this week – with another brand-new meme from Gates Dogfish!

Why “the kitchen sink”? Find out here! 🙂

The Kitchen Sink is even better when you can include a brand-new eDiscovery meme courtesy of Gates Dogfish, the meme channel dedicated to eDiscovery people and created by Aaron Patton of Trustpoint.One (which is a partner of eDiscovery Today!). For more great eDiscovery memes, follow Gates Dogfish on LinkedIn here! Then the eDiscovery manager growled, with his Grinch fingers nervously drumming, “I MUST find some way to stop Christmas from coming!” 🤣

Here is the kitchen sink for December 20, 2024 of ten stories that I didn’t get to this week (the last kitchen sink of the year, no less!), with a comment from me about each:

ChatGPT can now see through your phone’s camera and screen — one of its most impressive features yet: Holy bleep! ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode can now help provide real-time design tips for your home, assistance with math homework, or instant replies to your texts from the Messages app. Sure, it’s not available in the EU yet (with their pesky data privacy rules), but it’s available here in the good old US of A! Guess what I’ll be doing with part of my holiday? 😉

Safety First: A Fun Day at the “Office”: Not sure how I missed this post from Craig Ball on his training to obtain certification to inspect and acquire a Voyage Data Recorder (VDR) aboard a drilling vessel operating in the Gulf of Mexico, but Craig does a great job of recounting his experience. And the VDR may be the most unique source of ESI I’ve heard about all year!

From Penny Packets to Breakthroughs: Generative AI and Legal Tech in 2025: Rob Robinson uses a World War I vs. World War II analogy to illustrate just how far GenAI has come and will further come in 2025 – as usual, it does a great job of conveying the speed at which GenAI is advancing. As Rob explains at the end, it’s just an analogy (but a highly effective one).

Google Avoids Discovery on Discovery Based on Insufficient Foundation for Request: Interesting case coverage by Michael Berman on the EDRM blog. Sounds like plaintiffs missed their opportunity to pursue info on missing ESI? Lesson learned.

Why Does OpenAI Need So Much Money?: They’re spending more than $5.4 billion a year, that’s why. And they’ll need $37.5 billion a year by 2029. Dang! 😮

Billable Hour Tiers for Associates: Progressive or Lipstick on a Pig?: Stephen Embry discusses Steptoe’s decision to allow associates to choose their own billable hour targets. Bill more, get paid more; bill less, get paid less. As Stephen points out, there goes the incentive to leverage technology to be efficient. 😩

Illinois Supreme Court Releases Policy Authorizing Ethical Use of AI in the Courts: Big news, covered by Bob Ambrogi on his LawSites blog. Even more notable – they just released the policy on Wednesday and it goes into effect January 1st. 🤯

Cops: Google Street View Busted a Killer Moving a Body: Google drives through a Spanish village for the first time in 15 years and catches some guy loading a body into the trunk of his car. If that’s not fate and technology coming together for justice, I don’t know what is.

New ChatGPT feature makes every phone an AI phone (even the dumb ones): Yes, you can even use your old rotary phone to call ChatGPT and ask it a question. The guy in the above story who gets “one phone call” better make it a good one! 🤣

European Data Protection Board Emphasizes GDPR in AI Model Development and Deployment: Are you surprised that data privacy and AI are interwoven? Why do you think we needed all these new privacy laws in the first place. Rob Robinson, of course, was not surprised and covers it here.

Hope you enjoyed the kitchen sink for December 20, 2024! Back after the new year with another edition! Happy holidays!

So, what do you think? Is this useful as an end of the week wrap-up? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

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