How Soylent Auto-Transcribes Phone Calls to Build a Database of Legal Advice

https://zapier.com/blog/transcribe-phone-calls/

by mikeknoop • 11 years ago

58 70 11 years ago

joelrunyon2• 11 years ago

"That couldn't be further from the truth. We drink Soylent because it gives us the time to do other things that we love."

I find this strange that he acts like food is an obstacle (all of the time). What about the joy of enjoying your food?

thatswrong02• 11 years ago

This again... you can drink Soylent and still enjoy food. You can drink it for the times when you just need food but don't need to enjoy it.

joelrunyon2• 11 years ago

Meal replacements have been around forever. Why is soylent better?

pech0rin• 11 years ago

So true. The beauty of Soylent is that you get to enjoy food instead of it being a chore.

scardine2• 11 years ago

If you really need to drink an engineered solution it is a symptom of something else. Having to skip or delay a major meal should be a matter of absolute emergency.

I guess in the USA lunch is not the major meal, but it is sacred in my side of the planet and I like it like that. I'm a very anxious person, turning off everything for an hour in order to eat well is a very useful ritual and plays a big part on my concept of enjoying life. And I'm really considering moving to a place that has a "ciesta" culture as well.

What really matters in life?

afarrell3• 11 years ago

Have you never been in a situation where you were in a rush to go do something but you were hungry and didn't want to be hungry while you did the thing?

This means that soylent (which you could make in literally 50 seconds using a blender bottle, soylent powder, and faucet) would be somewhat useful. You'd probably want to add some flavor like chocolate powder though.

Myself, I very occasionally get really nervous and anxious and really just feel a bit of a revulsion at chewing and eating food. But, I know that I should eat because to maintain homeostasis. Perhaps you are capable of a sympathetic response to that situation. Soylent has been a good solution for me for those times.

Normally, I do enjoy food. I'll admit as a hard-of-smelling person, I probably don't get as much joy as other people, but I do enjoy it. But it is indeed sometimes an obstacle.

reedlaw3• 11 years ago

I have a simpler alternative:

* 1 liter milk

* 3 large bananas

* 1 spoonful peanut butter

* 1 scoop of cacao powder

Mix it all in a blender and enjoy.

nether2• 11 years ago

Why does McDonald's exist?

JabavuAdams• 11 years ago

McD french fries give me joy. There's really no other reason to eat them.

fizixer• 11 years ago

Just curious. Did they let the lawyers know the call is being recorded (it might even be illegal not to do so in some states)? and how did the lawyers react?

DanBC4• 11 years ago

They use UberConference. I'm guessing that makes it clear that some recording is happening, although the website doesn't say either way. https://www.uberconference.com/features/record_conference_ca...

EDIT: California is an "all party consent" state - everyone being recorded has to agree to it.

toomuchtodo4• 11 years ago

From some quick googling:

"California law generally requires a person to obtain consent from all parties to a call before recording the call. See Cal. Penal Code § 630 et seq. Consent can likely be obtained by providing a recording disclosure at the outset of the call."

johncoogan• 11 years ago

All recorded calls on UberConference begin with an automated message: "This call is being recorded"

dajohnson893• 11 years ago

Doctors record your health info too.

cyounkins• 11 years ago

Wait so they have their conversations with legal listened to and transcribed by random people at Rev? Considering the things one usually talks with lawyers about, it may not be super great to share that with random people outside the company.

will_brown2• 11 years ago

Along these lines, in theory allowing a 3rd party to listen to these conversations waives the attorney client privilege. In practice this would amount to being able to compel REV to testify about these conversations when relevant.

viggity• 11 years ago

not if Rev is being paid for their work. Think of it like an english to spanish translator, a spanish only illegal immigrant can still expect privilege with their counsel even if translator is there. Just because a third party is involved doesn't automatically waive privilege, it needs to be a third party unrelated to the case.

jacques_chester4• 11 years ago

Lawyers typically bill in increments of 6 minutes.

So when I had a question for my lawyer, I spent a few minutes polishing it up and sent an email. The response was usually billed for one or two increments.

It doesn't require a Rube Goldberg device to turn text into text.

And it turns out that good lawyers are good at writing. It's as central to their job as coding is to ours.

p4wnc62• 11 years ago

This has not been my experience at all. I've found that a phone call is much more efficient. If permitted, many lawyers I've dealt with, several of whom were clearly the best and most professional, would milk an email or text-based response for quite a lot more, even after being asked to keep it brief.

jacques_chester4• 11 years ago

If you feel your lawyer is overcharging you, tell them so, complain to the local bar and/or find another lawyer.

jbackus• 11 years ago

This is a great post. I'd love to hear more about multistage zaps people use. I'd also enjoy a post that talked about different zaps that zapier uses in house.

nether2• 11 years ago

Soylent seems like an ecommerce dev firm with a food product on the side. This article is more detailed than anything they've released about their actual Soylent formulation development and testing procedure.

Animats• 11 years ago

That's what bothers me about those guys. Their product testing is inadequate.[1] Their outsourced fulfillment operation loses orders.[2] They only do a few sales per minute. No major distributor stocks their product. Yet they're always talking about how elaborate their computer operations are.

[1] http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/18/9171521/soylent-prop-65-la... [2] http://readwrite.com/2014/07/22/soylent-food-replacement-bad...

thatswrong02• 11 years ago

Their product testing is inadequate.[1]

Did we read the same article? That article has _nothing_ to do with their product testing. It has everything to do with Prop 65 and labeling. To quote TFA:

But legalities and press releases aside, from a practical health perspective, none of this may matter: as Soylent notes, Prop 65's guidelines are notoriously stringent, pulling many everyday products into its labeling regime — and outside California, there are other more broadly accepted sets of lead and cadmium guidelines that the product meets.

...?

Their outsourced fulfillment operation loses orders.[2]

Present tense.. they _had_ major shipping and supply problems at launch. They don't seem to anymore.

DanBC4• 11 years ago

I loath Soylent, but the prop 65 thing is a distraction rather than evidence of anything wrong. That same warning is on a bunch of stuff because the limits are absurdly low, far lower than any safety threshold.

kyleblarson• 11 years ago

Didnt have time to read this article. Had friends over and we cooked a nice meal together and had a very pleasant evening. I like it that way.

ashaikh• 11 years ago

This is actually a really bad idea because of attorney-client privilege issues. By having a third party record the call, Uberconference or Gmail or Rev or Zapier itself, and it being sent forward to several other services, Soylent most likely waived any claim of privilege they may have in the event of litigation.

If you are a company considering doing this I would be very cautious.

I commend the hack, but unfortunately the legal world of ethics isn't moving as fast as technology.

How Soylent Auto-Transcribes Phone Calls to Build a Database of Legal Advice

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