Erin Austin: Hello, ladies. Welcome to this week's hourly to exit podcast. I am very happy to introduce you to my guest this week, Girija Patel, who is, I'm going to have her introduce herself to you, but I'm really excited about this episode because guess what we're talking about? Everyone's. Favorite topic, AI and Georgia has done a lot of research in this area.

Erin Austin: Uh, a lot of, uh, written a lot about it, spoken to a lot of audiences about it. So I think we'll get a lot out of this episode. So before I go any further, please introduce yourself. Erin,

Girija Patel: thank you so much for having me in your podcast. This is really special because I feel like we've gone full circles a few times now and I just love it.

Girija Patel: I love having these connections and the continuity of the connection as well. I am a lawyer like you, we, but I am in Houston, Texas, and we are. Experiencing beautiful 95 degree weather. Now, finally, um, my business, my legal practice, we are serving small business owners, essentially, which means it could be anybody, quite frankly.

Girija Patel: And, uh, a lot of creative entrepreneurs. I have a lot of tech companies, a lot of people who are creating content all the time. In fact, in today's world, I think everybody's creating content. All the time. And so I provide a lot of legal support and, um, you know, and the strategies and their businesses alongside their journey as an entrepreneur.

Erin Austin: Fantastic. And how did you become, I mean, I guess AI has been thrust upon us as opposed to us going to it. It has come to us. What were your, I mean, honestly, it stuck up on me. I knew it was out there. But, you know, I'm kind of a Luddite. So I'm like, Oh, what do I need to know about it? You know, and then suddenly it was like, bam, like it was everywhere and there was no ignoring it.

Erin Austin: What was your experience with kind of getting into the. AI.

Girija Patel: I felt the same way. Now. I also felt like a little like, Oh, that was a real like sneak attack from the side a little bit. Right? It's like, you're just like, where did that come from? I'm like, what field did that one come from? Um, but I mean, I, I am in the tech space a lot.

Girija Patel: Like I go and talk and like, so, you know, there was something brewing, but you just hear a lot of chatter. The ones that really come out of nowhere are the ones that don't talk, but they just are. Throw it out there. And that was chat GPT. And so when that happened, everybody's like, wait a second, we have AI now we can actually use it.

Girija Patel: It's at our fingertips because it's been around, right. It's been around since, so I was sitting in another panel and they're like, it's been around since the seventies, if not a little bit longer, but you know, yeah. Right. But wow. It's like the internet was not available to the masses until much later, the computer.

Girija Patel: I remember when I first got my first computer, I was like, My dad brought our first community in the eighties and that too, he had access just because of the company and the industry that he was working in. But I was like, oh, my gosh, that's so cool. Like, slowly and steadily. Tech just creeps up on you all of a sudden it's been around.

Girija Patel: It's literally brewing. But we're not paying attention because our minds are just not there. And so chat GPT did the same thing. It kind of just snuck up from around the corner and you're like, Oh, now AI is accessible to everybody. Meanwhile, we had AI, like our chat bots, like on our websites or the things that we're using.

Girija Patel: And, you know, those reforms of AI too, we just didn't call it that. Yeah.

Erin Austin: I mean, the, the. Example that you gave of suddenly, like, what I can do that now, like, that literally happened to me. I was just filling out some, you know, continuing legal education credits and it was like, what about AI? What the heck?

Erin Austin: Like, with half a, you know, frankly, with half an ear to it, probably working on something at the same time. And then, like, They must've, you know, mentioned chat GVT and that it's available. I'm like, what? And I'm like, suddenly I was listening and I went online and it was like, during that CLE, I'm like, Oh my thing.

Erin Austin: It's magic. I couldn't even believe it. Yeah. It is

Girija Patel: magic. It feels too good to be true. And it is

Erin Austin: speaking of which, well, one of the main, the big issues with something like this, when it sneaks up on us is, you know, I mean, the laws don't move nearly as fast as technology does. And so we, once again, find ourselves behind way behind, you know, as we have with social media and other, other things that have kind of exploded.

Erin Austin: So let's first back up, you know, in case anyone. Isn't familiar with chat and GBT and the players in the AI space. Can you just give us a brief overview of the types that are not, you know, kind of the super niche ones, but the ones that affect most of us.

Girija Patel: Yeah. So in general, like AI, artificial intelligence, chat, GPT and other.

Girija Patel: You know, uh, things of the same caliber, what are they doing? Essentially, they're literally scraping information from whatever codes that I've been put into that software or, um, and so the developer has told this particular software, Hey, I want you to scrape X, Y, Z information so that X, Y, Z information is your finite pool of information.

Girija Patel: It's not infinite. It's not some superhuman power that's creating this information, right? It is definitely sourced from already created. Information and whether that is publicly available or whether that is private, it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, that information is generally owned by somebody else in the back end, and it's not the company that's providing the AI to you for the most part.

Girija Patel: And so, you know, a lot of the scraping is happening, and we talk about chat more often than not, because that is the 1 that is so prevalent and it's free. Not paying for it. So everybody has access to it. But guess what? When everyone has access to it, that means everybody's using the same stuff over and over and over and over again.

Girija Patel: And while chat GPT has increased its, uh, scraping, uh, boundaries, I guess you could call it that way. Meaning, um, they're going throughout the internet. So there's a lot more stuff that's available. There are other tools out there that have automatically integrated AI into their, you know, uh, platforms, like, so, for example, Canva, which is used really vastly by a lot of people in the creative industry, not, everyone uses Canva, it's not a creative thing, it's like, it's everybody who knows Canva Oh, my gosh, I'm a graphic designer all of Canva.

Girija Patel: So Canva also has a lot of AI capabilities in it too now. I mean, Google the other day just popped up. Hey, do you want to use our AI services? And I'm like, okay, Google, let's do it. And so that's there too. And, um, of course, like within. Particular industries like the legal industry. There's a lot of software that's popped up now.

Girija Patel: Um, within the photography industry, there's a lot of software that's popped up that helps with editing or with, uh, calling, um, you know, so every industry has their AI. Little aspect and I say a, uh, every industry very loosely because there are other industries just like the law. That's a dinosaur and they are really like slow motion and catching up with everything that's happening and the law.

Girija Patel: And in that sense, yeah, we have AI tools, but at the same time, the law itself has not. Reached the whole AI situation and today we're talking about the U. S. Law. If you go outside globally, laws are different. Copyright laws, different IP laws, different in different countries and AI. I was just sitting on another.

Girija Patel: I was sitting in a CLE recently. And, uh, somebody said Italy or China, China, China, China's copyright does not say per se that content has to like work product, you know, whatever you're trying to copyright has to be generated by human meanwhile in America. That's definitely written, but in China it's not, although they're not like, okay, all AI is can be protected, but at the same time, it's not.

Girija Patel: Expressly written either. And so it's really interesting, you know, to see the nuances of AI and how they're impacting not just the U. S. but globally. Also,

Erin Austin: well, tell us what's the difference between Google and, you know, I can, I assume reach all corners of the Internet from Google. Versus why are we so much more alarmed by than we are by Google?

Erin Austin: Well, because Google

Girija Patel: is a search engine and you put in a question or you put in a search and it pops up different links. It pops up information, but it's literally sourcing from other people. And, you know, it, you know, the direct link access to it's not just a general information that they're giving you.

Girija Patel: And. They've used the keywords and based on the keywords that those websites have or the SEO that they've done. There's a lot of algorithms that run behind the scenes and the keywords and according to those, those things pop up or they might just be a paid ad sponsored ad and they pop up on your list too, right?

Girija Patel: That's that, that's Google. So it's a search engine. Meanwhile, ChatGPT is not that. So ChatGPT is where, or, you know, things like tools like ChatGPT are where you are putting in a question and it auto generates. This paragraph this research this thing, but the way it answers to you. It's not giving you any references unless you ask for it.

Girija Patel: And it's also just providing information in general now. So you don't know if it's truthful. You don't know if it's as accurate. You don't know if it's yours to be used any like, can you use it? And so there's a lot of issues that pop up with that also, but truly, it's just a It dump of information that is, but it just has now the software and the tools behind it.

Girija Patel: The software is where it can quickly get everything together and generate information. And so it's just really high powered in that sense. And it generates information in a smart way. Where it's providing you like, as if you're talking to the computer rather than just a link dump.

Erin Austin: Right? Right. Yeah. So the, so the, the fear is that, I mean, basically it takes out.

Erin Austin: I mean, it's not that it's today say, you know, a year ago, pre chat. I could go on Google, you know, ask, you know, um, you know, a question about. Yeah. Uh, to, you know, an article about something I can't think of a thing right now, but, you know, about money, about how to invest for retirement and I would get a bunch of sites and then I, as a human would have to kind of put it together, but I would still be able to use all these other people's work that I found on the Internet.

Erin Austin: And I could take it and change it just enough that it's not recognizable and not give them attribution. Right? I could do all that before. Yeah. Except that now with AI, it's kind of doing it instantaneously. And so it just kind of takes the friction out of, I guess, out of, um. Using other people's materials.

Girija Patel: Yeah, exactly. And I think that's the thing, right? It's just kind of auto dumping for you. And then you don't have to even put a brain behind it in the sense of your mind. And it's just, you could copy paste. Unfortunately, that's what's been going on. Right? And so a lot of people are like, oh, the fears that.

Girija Patel: Naturally occurred, which everyone was like, oh, my gosh, we're gonna lose our jobs. And so, but ultimately, like you said before, the human touches there, right? When you 1st did the Google and you can actually you can discern. Okay. This is good. This is bad. You can actually filter things out using your mind.

Girija Patel: Your wisdom, your experience that chat GPT does not have, it also doesn't have creativity. It doesn't have that EQ that you have as a human. So therefore it can never replace you. And, um, it's also finite, right? Like it's finite. Our creativity is not finite unless we make it by night. And I think, so those are like a lot of the, the fears that came out as like losing jobs.

Girija Patel: There's going to be jobs that are going to be replaced by automation. That's a natural given thing. Cars replaced buggies and horse driven carriages, you know, dishwashers replaced handwashing. And so things do happen. And you know, when the computer came out, it replaced a lot of writing. When the emails came out, it replaced a lot of handwriting and letters and stuff like that.

Girija Patel: And it is what it is. But at the same time, you still need the human touch in order to generate some of the output that you need ultimately. So then I truly don't think jobs are going to be taken. I just think more jobs will be created while other jobs might phase out because of automation and the ease, but other jobs will be created simultaneously.

Erin Austin: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the, the, the jobs that required some truly creative or artistic element to that. Won't go away now, if you had a job, or let's say your job was writing headlines. I don't know. And it really wasn't that creative. It's 100 percent possible that that job would go away, but those that require, you know, your, the application of expertise and context and all those things, all the things you mentioned those.

Erin Austin: Absolutely. You know, and, you know, I can say, like, Uh, a, I can't read the room, right? I can't go like, oh, I don't like her body language. I better, you know, go another direction now, uh, things that are uniquely human and require humans, uh, involvement. So, all right. So, speaking of the legal issues and being behind, I know that recently there was a, I think it was just a, at the initial level, um, of a, a case regarding.

Erin Austin: Okay. Someone who tried to register a 100 percent AI artwork, and the copyright office rejected it. And, uh, I mean, they say they're going to appeal it, of course, which I imagine they will. Um, and, uh, but at this time, if you ask the copyright office, which I have recently, where you say, like, what would you, what will you do with something that's, you know, like, I start with a, with an outline from AI, but then I write around it.

Erin Austin: And, and, and it was like. Well, it depends was the answer that I got. So what's going on with that? Where is it going? How do we, how do we deal with that?

Girija Patel: I love it. It depends. It's so funny when someone messaged me a question, like, just like, it depends guys. I mean, no, you know, you, you know, better than I do about the copyright office, but like, with the copyright office, right?

Girija Patel: You have to disclose how much of it is yours or not. So let's just start with there. Like, if you know, like parts of it are a hundred percent created by not you, it doesn't matter if it's AI or not, not you, you got to disclose that anyways. And then the parts that are created a hundred percent by AI.

Girija Patel: Disclose that too. Now, what, what, uh, makes up too much or too little? That's still something that they have to figure out, right? What's transformative versus what's just kind of, kind of the same, but not really. That's still, they have to figure out. And that's why I think they gave you the, it depends answer, right?

Girija Patel: But I guess I can to err on the side of caution and just to be, uh, you know, abundantly cautious. I think if you have anything that's a hundred percent generated by all of by AI. Or something else that is not yours that obviously you have to disclose so that you can at least get copyright protected for the parts that you've created.

Girija Patel: Right? And then, um, if it's something that in your true mind, you know, that you are really it's not yours. It's really not your creative. It's not your creative output and it's not 100 percent your authorship. And that says where you can claim fame to it. Right. Wouldn't I mean, like, in your subconscious, you already know that answer so might as well just work towards that way in that sense.

Girija Patel: Um, you know, I, I wish I could say, hey, 50 percent or more, you know, and I know that it's going to be great, but we can't say that because we don't know the answers. But if, you know, if we just go with the rule of law, Currently today, then we just kind of look at that and just use that as our guiding light.

Girija Patel: Then I think that would kind of go with like, is it transformative or is it a derivative work? Like, you know, it's kind of looking at that is how much of the original are we actually putting in to the final? And if it's substantially the original and no one can really tell the difference, then Hey, you and I both know that's not copyright protected.

Erin Austin: Right. And the other thing is, you know, with respect to things that we register for copyright, as opposed to things that are automatically, you know, the things we write every day, all the posts, all the newsletters and things like that. I mean, I don't register any of this, that kind of stuff, the things that you actually want to register on the assumption that these are the things that are really important in your business.

Erin Austin: These are kind of, you know, your flagship pieces, your courses, or your books or things like that, that should not be AI generated. Hopefully that stuff is straight from you and. Your experience so that, you know, yeah.

Girija Patel: Okay. Let's talk about that for a second. Oh my gosh. How

Erin Austin: many, how,

Girija Patel: okay. A lot of my clients are in the online business space.

Girija Patel: Okay. I love you all, but come on if you are selling a course. And then you expect, you know, you're selling a course and now you're generating those courses on AI tools, because that's how people are selling AI these days. Generate this free workshop, generate this, generate this workbook on AI. I'm sorry. I don't know what you're doing, but that anybody can get that.

Girija Patel: I can just do that on myself. Like, you know, we have, yeah, your prompts have to be correct. This has to be this. That has to be this. Really? I mean, ultimately that's not partition.

Erin Austin: I'm curious. Like, what are they, what is the content? Like, do you, have you seen any more? I don't know,

Girija Patel: like, I mean, I'm going to get like a thousand, you know, ads on my Instagram now, but you know, like they'll pop up and

Erin Austin: say, it's listening.

Erin Austin: I know that my phone's here,

Girija Patel: but it pops up and say, Um, like these different, uh, educators online and there's like, okay, we're going to teach you how to make a course. Lovely. They're going to give you the guidance on how to make a course. Then you have these, like, software tools out there. You want to create an AI course.

Girija Patel: We can give you so many different chat GPT prompts on how to create courses for yourself. Like, that's so misleading on so many different levels, and that's just unless they tell you, hey, listen, we can teach you prompts that can guide you to make topics that can guide you to create an outline that can guide you to inspire you.

Girija Patel: But then truly, at the end of the day, you have to take that. And make it your own in order to protect it for, you know, copyright purposes. That's a whole nother ballgame. And I, you don't know either they're misleading in their advertising or they're just giving you the wrong information on the whole thing itself.

Girija Patel: And I just, I'm finding some of these unethical practice. I find them unethical. My opinion, you know, and, uh, there's just, and, you know, when you're, when you're unethical in that space, you're also. Violating a lot of other laws that are out there with regards to like, you know, FTC and all these other things.

Girija Patel: And you just have to be careful. Online marketing needs to really be more careful in what they're doing.

Erin Austin: Yeah. You know, I'm wondering if I've seen some of these that you mentioned, because I know somehow in my IG feed is something about, um, You know, writing books and selling, uh, eBooks and for multiple revenue streams.

Erin Austin: And I'm thinking now, like, probably they were going to, like, have some sort of way of using AI to create all these books. I'm guessing. Yeah,

Girija Patel: and there was a case last year where there so there are a lot of communities out there, whether you're an author community, whether on their online communities, other other communities, photography communities, so many communities out there, right?

Girija Patel: And some of, since the whole AI thing has become like, so popular, some people have created AI communities also, where they're sharing a lot of information and that software now this platform is. Generating information based on what the community is feeding into it alongside maybe a lot of other things that they're scraping.

Girija Patel: And so there's this 1 particular community. I forgot the name of it, but there was this case last year that it's graphic novelist. So she's a graphic novelist. That's what she does. She creates comics, right? Like, a, a, a comics. Um, and so it's graphic novelist created. She's part of this graphic novelist, AI community.

Erin Austin: Just need to write that down.

Girija Patel: I forgot the, I forgot her name. Like, I'm so sorry. I forgot all this information, but the, um, the funny thing is that it's really comical to me actually because I'm just like, what were you thinking? But, um, she creates this entire graphic novel based on. AI graphic designing.

Girija Patel: So she's not even created pictures. Some AI software has created her, her, you know, graphics and her novel. I mean, okay, the verbiage is all her probably, but the graphics, which is predominantly your book itself is a graphic novel. She's created it through AI and this community also further permits all members to use each other's stuff too, which again, so it's, um, essentially she, you know, registered for the copyright office.

Girija Patel: Copyright office actually said, okay, because she also did not disclose that it's created by AI. And so the copyrights office, like, you know, said, okay, but within a month, they also have the right to rescind. Their, uh, you know, copywriter, uh, registration that they've done. And so they did. They're like, hello, this is totally generated by ai.

Girija Patel: It's not generated by you at all, like the graphics, so we cannot, how did,

Erin Austin: do you know how they found out? Like,

Girija Patel: I don't actually, I'm not really sure how that happened. Um, which is funny because Right, like a lot of times there's no cross and checking. Yeah. Like, what, there's no, none of that is happening. So I'm really not sure how that happened.

Girija Patel: And, um, so they, they rescinded it and mm-hmm. . Now, of course, you know, there's a whole like litany of all these other things happening, but it just goes to the point of like, first of all, can we, if you're getting into a community or using a software that has AI implementation into it, read the terms and conditions of it.

Girija Patel: You have to, because you don't know what they're using the information you're inputting for, right? You might think it's yours, but the minute you give it away, it's not yours anymore. And the you said, by the way, everybody in the world can have it. You can't protect that stuff anymore. And so it's undermining the whole process of the copyright registration at that point as well.

Girija Patel: So read that terms and conditions, please read it. It's important more than anything. It's important these days. Than ever before. Um, also read their privacy policy because ultimately you're going to be almost responsible for whatever this third party might be doing inadvertently. So you need to read it and make sure it aligns with your business practices and your values also, because it's important.

Girija Patel: And, uh, you know, you just really need to hone into the terms and conditions of these different platforms that you're using.

Erin Austin: Yeah. Well, that's certainly the reason why. Law firms have been very slow to use AI because they don't know exactly what will happen if I put in something about a client, where does that end up and, you know, like chat GVT does say, you know, what you, your content does not enter our database, although like, we know that it stores it somehow because we know that it improves on it with each, you know, regeneration.

Erin Austin: So, and it's using, it's combining it. Other sources to make it better. So somehow it's in there somehow, you know, we don't know how exactly, but we know that, um, it's there and, and, and I guess the, the, the, you know, the fact that they have populated the, um, their databases with, um, protected materials that they didn't have the authority to use.

Erin Austin: Like, how do we trust? Yeah,

Girija Patel: right? Like, we are you saying other people's products work product that we don't have permission to use and neither do most of these software companies. I highly doubt it. I mean, if anything, if you're within a community, that's a paid community. Maybe maybe they've done it. Who knows?

Girija Patel: We still have to check the terms and conditions on that 1. And they may not even have it in the terms, like, you know, the terms and conditions of their website or their, uh, their membership agreement. That's something you might just have to ask on a side note, because it just may not be relevant to them to share it with you.

Girija Patel: And, um, but that's truly 1 of the biggest things is, you know, like, inadvertently infringing on someone else's. IP rights, because that's definitely a viable scenario. Another thing that we need to really worry about is the efficacy of the information that we're getting. How true is it? What, how true is the sourcing?

Girija Patel: How true is it? Is it hallucinating? Because chatgbt hallucinates all day long. Yeah.

Erin Austin: Talk about hallucinations. So, yeah. Huh? Talk about hallucinations for those who have

Girija Patel: hallucinations. Yeah, it definitely has it, you know, and so you have to be careful that the information that you are now gaining is a truthful is there accuracy in it.

Girija Patel: I know that there's lawyers in the beginning that, you know, in the chat groups that come up on Facebook with us, it's like, Oh, I use chat TV to do research. And I came up with this crazy case that was totally saying what I wanted to say. But then later on, I realized it didn't exist

Erin Austin: that I had a personal experience where I was working on a contract and it referenced a state law in New York, let's say, and I was going to use it in California. I'm like, well, what, and I asked it, I asked chat GPT, what would be an equivalent law under California law to this, you know, the citation for the New York law?

Erin Austin: And it just made up. Just made up a law and like, you know, I'm like, okay, I get the answer. Then I plug it in just to see, you know, to see, you know, what is this thing? So I can actually read the law and it's like, doesn't exist, you know? You

Girija Patel: have to double check everything and make sure it's correct. Make sure, because ultimately what's on the line, your credibility is on the line.

Girija Patel: Like that's more important to me. Then all the other risk exposure that I'm getting, that's my personal thing, but like, you know, I don't want my credibility to be on the line. I want it to be where I've done the cross checking. I've done the three times on my shores situation. So, right.

Erin Austin: Yeah. And you have to be mindful of the use, right?

Erin Austin: Like if you ask chat, you could probably let people do this, like write 10 social media posts that are just kind of pithy about some posts about copyright, you know, and they do. 10 sentences for you for you to, you know, that's one thing versus again, something that's, uh, really going to be an evergreen piece or something that you're using to show your expertise or something you're going to be presenting to someone, certainly a client deliverable for, you know, don't, you know, don't.

Erin Austin: Do that, you know, and say, well, let's talk about the deliverables. And, um, you know, I know I recently had a client who was word. She's a speaker and, um, and the, uh, sponsor, like, took her speech and like, made a transcript from it and then stuck it into chat and then create an article out of it and not off out, you know, and she didn't have anything to prevent them from doing that.

Erin Austin: And so she was, you know, wanted to revise her speaker agreements to make sure that that didn't happen again. And I know that other people are doing some of the things like, making sure that, you know, deliverables, you know, haven't used for deliverables and certainly it's not new to have to. Give reps and warranties that the deliverables or original things like that.

Erin Austin: But how are people handling that in the transactional areas? Yeah, same thing.

Girija Patel: Um, gosh, I didn't even think about some, like, going to presentation and someone taking that, um, like, okay, so, um, I absolutely include now the whole AI calls and that's the thing, right? Well, the law hasn't caught up to it like courts and actual, you know, case law or statutory law.

Girija Patel: But as lawyers, we have to catch up to it a lot quicker. And so we have to include these laws that clauses that never existed before. And now you're creating clauses that you didn't need to create before. And so that's definitely part of my new contracts that are coming out. Even my old ones, I'll push back onto my, I mean, I'll, I'll revert back to all my clients and say, Hey, listen, Okay.

Girija Patel: Do you need this? Is this something that we need to put in back into your contracts that we've already created? Because it's truly a fear factor, right? Because A lot of people are doing it without very innocently, actually not without any, it's, there's no, there's zero malicious intent on this. It's just an innocent.

Girija Patel: Oh, but it makes our life easier. It makes work easier. We're more productive. And you're looking at all the positive aspects of using AI, which is fine. But if ultimately you are giving something to your client as a business owner, if you're providing a service or product to your client, that they will in turn.

Girija Patel: Converted into another service and product for their clients, or if they're using for their purposes where they're owning it and they want to use it for their brand or for whatever purpose, they're wanting to now claim ownership, intellectual property ownership on it. You have to disclose what you've used and to what extent you've used it, because then that would also directly reflect on ownership.

Girija Patel: For them, and so, yeah, I've used to do research. I've used to create some prompts for your captions, or, you know, whatever the spine, but but if you're using it for other purposes, where, like. You're using it to create their their say their logo. No, you're like, you can't do that. Don't do that. And so like, that's not a thing.

Girija Patel: Don't create a tagline. Also, please don't do that unless it's like, really unique. You don't even then you don't know. Point is that It needs to be part of your contracts now. And like you said, also with the speaker agreements, you have to, in fact, should just be part of any agreement where there's usage, right?

Girija Patel: What is usage look like? Can somebody take something just because they're sponsoring me and convert everything that I'm doing and create a derivative out of it? No, maybe, I don't know. It depends on your relationship with them, but that just kind of goes again to the usage aspect of. You know, the intellectual property that you're creating and licensing out to someone else.

Girija Patel: Yeah.

Erin Austin: Yeah. And again, like, I mean, there were shades of this in current agreements in your old, whatever is currently out there, you know, uh, in addition to, you know, the originality, um, requirement, or even, you know, requiring. Uh, the client's permission before you incorporate any 3rd party materials, and we might have a traditional sense of it.

Erin Austin: Well, if I'm going to use some, you know, open source software or something, then I got to disclose order from using something that I'm sub licensing to you. I'm going to disclose it. Well, we also need to be thinking in terms of this. AI material is also not yours. I don't know who it's not, but it's not yours.

Erin Austin: And there by definition, third party. It's a third party material. So it is, and I think

Girija Patel: a lot of people just don't understand that. Right. It's like, it's like the whole misnomer. I go to Google, so because it's public, I can use it, it's fair use or it's on Facebook. And Facebook should, you know. No, my legal rights, because it's public, but it's not Facebook, Google, they're all private companies.

Girija Patel: They're not a public company, they're not a government company, they can do whatever the heck they want.

Erin Austin: Right. Confusing public and public domain. I 

Girija Patel: do. Yeah. It's confusing. Right? A lot. Yeah. And so I think it just falls under the real, like innocent factor. And then just. Lack of knowing, right? Ignorance. But ignorance is never a defense.

Girija Patel: Never, never, never. That is true.

Erin Austin: So for, for our audience of experts, um, professional services providers, expertise based business owners, like what are the top one or two top, uh, tips you have for them as they navigate AI in and around their business? That's a 

Girija Patel: great question. You know, I would, um, This will take some time, but I would do, like, an audit on how you want to use AI in your business, meaning look at what you're doing right now.

Girija Patel: Look at the ways you could actually streamline some work processes, the SOPs into your business and integrate AI into those spaces where they don't really impact products. The output necessarily directly, but it's just facilitating and easing your workflow. Um, you know, I've used AI to create emails, just create this email for me and you just want to make sure it sounds like your voice.

Girija Patel: So there needs to be an audit. And then also alignment, especially have a team of people working for you. You need to make sure that they're all on the same page. Of how they're working for you, whether they're employee or a contractor, because you don't want your team member using AI without your knowledge.

Girija Patel: And then giving you this amazing stuff. And you're like, wow, what just happened overnight? And, um, so there needs to be an understanding of what you have right now. And how I will be integrated into your business. And that needs to be expressed with your team as well. So that way everybody's on board and they know expectations and that notice has been given to them.

Girija Patel: Um, also I would really urge on the factor of transparency, transparency with your clients, transparency with how you're doing business, uh, even within the team itself on how with clients also, this is how I use AI. AI, if you don't use AI, that's great. Um, you know, you have to have transparency with your privacy policies also, and then the terms and conditions.

Girija Patel: And if there's any part of your AI that you're using as a service provider, where you are using AI, and, you know, as part of the deliverables, that absolutely needs to be part of the transparency. And it might be a part of your business model. That's okay. Your client

Erin Austin: needs to know that. Yeah. If you know, it's baked into your pricing.

Erin Austin: The reason this is such a budget friendly option is because we use some AI generated materials. It's not all, you know, custom made by human. Then that's fine. I mean, there are people who want something at every price point. Right. Um, but yeah, but don't pretend that it's bespoke when it's.

Girija Patel: Yeah, I always as a business owner. I always think it's really important to go back to the value system of your business and the mission of your business. And whenever you're adding something new, whether it's technology or a new business diversity, whatever you're doing, does it align with your mission?

Girija Patel: Does it align with the values that you have and then move forward with that? And then make sure you are creating transparency amongst your team. Thank you. And your clients on how you're using or what you're what the plan is.

Erin Austin: Yeah. And to be clear, like, I'm not demonizing AI or the usage of AI, but because it is, you know, technology is, you know, it's, um, but it is, yeah, about.

Erin Austin: The alignment with, you know, how you're presenting yourself and your services and deliverables and, uh, and what the contract requires, of course, as well. Um, so

Girija Patel: it is here to stay. It's going to come in many different forms and fashions. Chat. It was just literally the 1 1st robust version that we're all having access to.

Girija Patel: There's going to be a lot more stuff coming out. I mean, even with like, virtual reality and wearing those. Goggles and Google's. I mean, I'm sorry. Um, uh, Apple's coming out with something new now, you know, with the,

Erin Austin: uh, virtual reality. So cool.

Girija Patel: But, uh, but I mean, there's a lot going on, right? There's a lot that can, that can also change the face of businesses too, because everything can become a business thing and it's nothing is wrong.

Girija Patel: It's just making sure that you are using in a way that is. That is ethical. That is not, um, you know, getting into other people's rights or violating someone else's space or privacy or, you know, those aspects. Also,

Erin Austin: right. Yeah. And violating other people's rights is a little bit tricky simply because we don't know what the source of the AI generated content is.

Erin Austin: So, so just taking it as a starting point and then putting your own original spin. Absolutely.

Girija Patel: Yeah. Because it doesn't tell you it's not like Google. Where it's sourcing and even then, when you go into someone else's website, you don't know where they're sourcing from. That's right.

Erin Austin: That is so true. That is so true.

Erin Austin: There's only so many ideas in the world. Right? And I think

Girija Patel: I know I miss the encyclopedias. I

Erin Austin: miss the other day. I wish I could remember the context, but I was thinking, I mean, you know. Like many of our parents had this massive linear feet of encyclopedias in our houses growing up. So yes, it's

Girija Patel: one of those like It's it's encyclopedias at that time were literally a non is a non refutable source of already like you just feel like you knew it's coming from the right space is not that

Erin Austin: it's helpful. I like, you know, I like it for my

Girija Patel: pop culture purposes is really good. It's really cool. But, you know, Wikipedia ultimately can be. From my understanding, it can be just done by, I could put

Erin Austin: up something. Well, I think you do have to have some qualifications to post. Yeah. I don't think like anyone can post on anyone's, but yeah, but you're right.

Erin Austin: It's not, we don't know. We don't know. All right. So thank you for that. So as we know, this is a very meta podcast for female founders of expertise based businesses who are building them to scale and hopefully sell someday. And so. You as the female founder of an expertise based business, do you have any plans to perhaps sell your business someday or what your next step may be?

Girija Patel: Yeah, scaling is definitely a part of the plan of action. Um, right now. So I have a subscription legal services that I offer and my goal is to get that into every, like all 50 states, because that's just like, I want it to be available. And it's not going to be not legal zoom, but it's definitely like legal services that are available throughout the 50 states.

Girija Patel: So that is the plan of action that I'm working towards. And, um, that's on the legal side. And I have started some, an educational platform as well for younger kids. And I'm hoping to spread that also. Tell me about that. It's called junior pitch deck and it is essentially like, you know, like a shark tank, but for middle schoolers.

Girija Patel: And it's a program where it teaches them the foundation of building a business. And so every class you're learning something about either finance or marketing or business planning, ideating and all that stuff. And ultimately you're creating a pitch deck. Which will follow up with a pitch competition at the end.

Girija Patel: And the goal is to, my goal with this project is really a passion project of mine that I'm working on, but I'm looking to spread it into all schools globally. And that is because I want to spark hope in kids. I want to break cycles of Um, not enough or the cycles of I can't do it, or you weren't made for this, or you got the short end, like all that negative stuff.

Girija Patel: I just want to break those cycles and tell kids that just because you're given this space doesn't mean this is where you belong only. And so why don't we look into ourselves, find our gifts. Find the things that have been given to us naturally and make them better and create something out of it and serve others.

Erin Austin: That's fantastic. I love that. Is there, uh, is that publicly available? Like, is there a

Girija Patel: website for that? Or is that, uh, I am building a website out right now. It's something that I, this is my 4th semester teaching at one of the schools here in Houston. And I love it. It is so fun. Kids are brilliant. Middle schoolers are brilliant.

Girija Patel: They're absolutely prepared to learn about a balance sheet and all things about marketing and they can, they can share. Also, they can effectively. Communicate about their businesses and brilliant ideas are coming out of these kids. Uh, so no, there's no website yet. So once I get that, I'll let you know.

Erin Austin: I know people will be very interested in that.

Erin Austin: That's really

Girija Patel: building process of this. Uh, we, me, I, I am in the building process of this. Um, it's definitely a passion project, but truly. I, you know, I really firmly believe on having a value system and companies and businesses and so the first pillar of this entire thing is hope because I want to give hope to kids.

Girija Patel: I don't want them to be just stuck in the mud and think that this is where we need to be only.

Erin Austin: That is fantastic. Well, you know, typically I ask my guests, you know, uh, about an organization or person who helps build a more equitable economy, but I think you just explained one. I think that's fantastic.

Erin Austin: And I know it's a for profit. I hope it's for profit, but as opposed to a nonprofit, but still, it's something that for people to get the word out and for people to get interested and. And look for more information about it. So, um, when you have, yeah, I'd love to be able to share that when you have more details

Girija Patel: about that.

Girija Patel: Absolutely. Absolutely. I, you know, I would love to get. Um, more collaborations done with companies. So kids can actually get, um, exposure to mentors and people that are outside of their normal circle. And I mean, you never know when you can spark that hope and some child and, you know. Give them that vision that they never thought they would get before.

Girija Patel: So it's truly like, I, we didn't even talk about this. I was talking about a whole nother project called magic bus, which is also amazing. That's not even mine.

Erin Austin: Well, where can people find you? So, so people who are interested to find out more and find out more about both your legal practice and this fantastic project you're working

Girija Patel: on.

Girija Patel: Yeah, I'm on Instagram all the time, uh, at GBPLaw, as it says right there. And, um, I'm on Facebook. Uh, you can email me, gbp at gbplaw. com. I'll be, I'll say hello to you there too. But yeah, I'm available. And LinkedIn also, same thing.

Erin Austin: Awesome. Well, it was wonderful to have you. Great conversation. And, uh, and thanks again for joining us today.

Erin Austin: Thank

Girija Patel: you so much. I really appreciate it. All right.

Erin Austin: Thanks guys. See you next time.