After reading the horror story about a guy suing OpenAI because it said he murdered his kids, I decided to find out what ChatGPT says about me.

I covered the story on last week’s kitchen sink where a Norwegian man looked himself up on ChatGPT and “was shocked when ChatGPT responded with outputs falsely claiming that he was sentenced to 21 years in prison as ‘a convicted criminal who murdered two of his children and attempted to murder his third son’. Yikes!

Not wanting there to be any “skeletons in my closet”, I decided to ask ChatGPT’s Deep Research module for information about me. I patterned my initial query after one that Stephanie Clerkin posted about on LinkedIn recently. Here is the query I used:

“Please find all publicly available information on Doug Austin from Spring, TX. Include social media profiles and handles (Facebook, LinkedIn, X, and any others). Look up their professional history, public records, new mentions, article mentions, online content like blogs, podcasts, white papers, conference sessions, and videos. Focus on activities as far back as you can find. Find out political affiliations, posts, business associations, achievements, charitable work. Provide citations if available.”

ChatGPT then asked a follow up question, as follows:

“Could you please clarify more about Doug Austin from Spring, TX? For example, do you know his profession, industry, approximate age, or any affiliated organization or company? This will help narrow down the correct individual for the research.”

My response:

“He is in the eDiscovery profession and is a blogger and consultant. He is 64 years old. He currently works for eDiscovery Today.”

ChatGPT then proceeded to conduct the research, taking 6 minutes and linking to 22 sources. Here is some of what ChatGPT says about me.

The good news? ChatGPT doesn’t think I’m a child murderer. 😇

A few observations:

• While the research touted 22 sources, the predominant source was eDiscovery Today. So, when it discussed my “industry achievements and recognition”, it referenced this page for a lot of that.
• It said: “He earned a bachelor’s degree from Baylor University in the early 1980s​, and later also attended St. Thomas Episcopal (high school) in Houston.” Um, pretty sure I went to high school before college, just sayin’. 🤪
• One publication it referenced for me was Muck Rack, on which I created a profile (for free) years ago when I first started eDiscovery Today and forgot about it. The site actually does a great job of tracking my blog posts and mentions on the web and is always up to date. Pretty cool!
• One of the “Business Associations and Community Involvement” it mentions is the annual “#DrinksWithDougAndMary” event at LegalWeek that I used to co-host with Mary Mack. Of course, we were both with different organizations back then, so it’s interesting that it features that prominently.
• The top article it lists in “Mentions in News and Publications” is the article by Bob Ambrogi on May 6, 2020 titled “Layoffs Hit Two Well-Known E-Discovery Professionals” So, apparently, the most notable mention of me is getting laid off. 🤣
• One thing that it said that I particularly agree with: “Doug Austin does not appear to publicly espouse political affiliations on his professional platforms. His online presence is notably focused on legal, technological, and industry subjects. There is no record of partisan commentary under his blog or social media profiles; his posts stick to eDiscovery trends, case law, data privacy, and cybersecurity topics. For instance, even when covering a topic intersecting with public affairs (such as geolocation data from the January 6th Capitol incident), he treats it as a discussion on data privacy and legal discovery, not a political statement​.” Yep, that’s me.

In the summary, ChatGPT said: “From conference podiums and podcast studios to daily news posts, Doug Austin continues to shape and chronicle the evolution of eDiscovery – earning widespread respect as a trusted expert in this specialized field​.” Thanks!

That’s some of what ChatGPT says about me.

So, what do you think? Have you asked ChatGPT about you? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the authors and speakers themselves, and do not necessarily represent the views held by my employer, my partners or my clients. eDiscovery Today is made available solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Today should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.