Re: I'm Begging You to Leave Your AI Note-Taker at Home

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• Hacker News
• I’m Begging you to keep your Luddite opinion with you . Just answer politely no and that’s it.

  Why should I care about your opinion . It’s my convenience your privacy prefs.

  by maxdo
• please review what affirmative consent is .. it's important, especially within the context of health care.
  by infinite_spin
• > How fucking creepy is that?! How fucking awkward is that? And before you start talking with whoever you're catching up with, you ask "You don't mind, do you?"

  In living memory, I had a HUMAN notetaker in important meetings. After secretaries left the world went to hell and topic experts and engineers were expected to have social graces, everything got worse. We invented new religions like agile to make up for a good old organized secretary.

  So - no I won't apologize. My memory is that of a catfish. I see a moving object and i head towards it. Note takers are invaluable, human or not. And AI or NOT voice to text is NOT new.

  Lastly, it's worked out to keep everyone honest. I work with clients, we have calls, they're long. I just had a client pull ME up in an old recording agreeing to do something after I said 'no thats out of scope'. So its nice to see some accountability.

  by calvinmorrison
• I strongly disagree that agile was invented to make up for the absence of secretaries. Agile was invented to make up for the absence of omniscience (and absence of the recognition of non-omniscience). Secretaries weren't going to make that work.
  by AnimalMuppet
• But the quoted example and your counterexample are very different cases! It can be creepy to use an AI note taker when "catching up" and totally a good idea for hour-long client calls.
  by seizethecheese
• Well, yes, but the article is not about those important meetings.

  The examples there are literally meeting friends over coffee and attending a health-care professional.

  by marcosdumay
• It has occurred to me over and over for the last several years that many of the senior engineers at my company would be substantially more productive with some sort of assistance from someone who specializes in having executive function skills. One such person given four or five engineers to manage could do wonders. And they'd also be the best source of feedback for hard-to-measure performance evaluation information like "is this senior engineer actually working on anything most days?" But executive assistants are a privilege reserved for only the people who are at level X and up.
  by CobrastanJorji
• This particular article concerns an AI notetaker being used in the context of healthcare - there is a well founded reason that health information is so stringently controlled which is to enable patient comfort at sharing potentially embarrassing or uncomfortable details. If you're receiving PT there is a large potential to feel shame over an inability to do things that were previously trivial[1].

  Once upon a time the notes may have been recorded by a staff member of the doctor's office or by the doctor themselves (usually after the meeting). Budgetary constraints push HCPs towards cutting staff and those rolls are being replaced by AI and that is not okay.

  Staff, Nurses, Doctors are all under the clear guidance of HIPAA and understand their responsibility towards patient privacy - it isn't a perfect system and there are notable disclosures and violations that have happened in the past but once third party systems are involved - especially non-deterministic third party systems - then the client's understanding of privacy may be severely compromised.

  I love voice to speech and meeting summarization for thinking sessions with coworkers where maybe someone is motivated to take notes (and better participates through that action) but the emphasis is on everyone being present and being able to talk freely. The doctor's office is a fundamentally different environment, though. 1. Aside - an unnecessary shame - no one should feel guilt over trying to overcome a disability.

  by munk-a
• Yeah… NO.

  Cluely is God-sent, I just want it in my glasses 24/7 and I’m set.

  by mag7269
• I can understand, especially in a medical context, being bothered by AI notetaking specifically because it implies your private information being handed off to a third-party where you cannot control it, rather than that an AI tool is processing it. That said, it is common practice in business to take notes or record calls. I take notes either by hand or type-written in nearly every meeting that I'm in. I often record my meetings. When it's entirely within my company, we have an internal (e.g. not third-party) AI transcription tool that I enable. When meeting with external entities, I either write notes, record audio, or have a designated person with me to write notes.

  Taking minutes/notes in a meeting and then being accountable to follow-up on any action items out of that meeting is just standard business process across industries and across the globe. That's not what the author is referring to with their therapist, that's a very different context, but in the context most people on HN find themselves in, having someone take notes is not only not a big deal, it /should/ happen.

  by tristor
• I think most people here miss the point. IF the AI Note taker would be only on device, it would be less creepy. But at moment everything goes to some companys (and so also more or less direct, to the government too).
  by _trampeltier
• Archive fallback as the site seems to be timing out:

  https://web.archive.org/web/20260707202807/https://firespher...

  by AntonyGarand
• Patient: "I want high quality care with good follow up."

  Doctor jots down key bits on a paper chart.

  Patient: "I want my records to go with me."

  Doctor takes notes on computer.

  Patient: "I want to sue my doctor if things go wrong."

  Doctor takes copious notes on computer.

  Patient: "I hate my doctor looking at the screen instead of me."

  Doctor gets an AI scribe.

  Patient: "I want my doctor to take the notes."

  Doctor: sigh

  by 0xWTF
• This is not OK
  by josefritzishere
• Knowing both doctors and nurses before AI scribes, actually hand writing notes isn’t usually done in front of the patient. They make quick notes so they keep up with the conversation and then when they need to do long form, they reference their scribbles but do the rest from memory at the END of the day.

  For every one person that says they mind, it adds likely an additional margin of error AND time to their day. So I really disagree with making people’s lives harder. That’s why technology exists…

  And more and more of these systems are on device models, not cloud compute. So I don’t see that argument either

  by fathermarz
• The most absurde thing is that nobody will ever read those notes, transcripts anyhow.
  by smartmic
• I don't think the issue AI note-taking per se. It is whether a conversation can still be candid and confidential once everyone knows it may become permanent, searchable, and shareable. Big tech companies don't exactly have a clean record on privacy.

  Just saying no sounds simple enough. But social pressure makes that very difficult.

  The normalisation of constant recording really has me worried, everything is so monitored now. Privacy just keep get more and more eroded for the sake of minor convenient features and products. At what point do we start deciding these trade off are no longer worth it? And is it even too late to make that decision?

  by raychis
• did you use AI for your site because it ain't loading... so based on the title... I have no problem with people using them to help their memory, and if they kept it local, but I have a problem with monopolistic and exploitative companies with private data, that likely ends up in a govt db.
  by winddude
• > Just leave your computer or note-taker device/app off. Or grab a napkin to write some notes on, that's not that hard. > > Not everything needs to be written down

  Congratulations on your apparently very well-functioning brain with seemingly impeccable working memory. I really wasn't expecting this article to go from "I don't want this conversation to be recorded" to "why would anyone even want to take notes, it's not that hard" but I'll say it's certainly a way for this article to go.

  by thepasch
• Well, had a meeting with a VC that literally brought his note taking 3rd person to the meeting, did not even say hello. Tbh, I still find it creepier than an AI transcriber.
  by maxignol
• > I told my physio that I do mind. I am not comfortable with everything being recorded, especially not if it goes through an AI. She gracefully accepted and wrote notes like a normal human > And if that makes things awkward, then that's not on me > what's the purpose of it that it is so unmissable in this light-hearted conversation.

  This post is incoherent. It begins with an anecdote about AI in a medical context, but later acts as if the whole post is about AI in casual conversation (as it is in the (better-written) post they are responding to). Those are very different contexts with very different considerations! But also both the original post and reply are premised on the idea that saying "actually I'd rather not" is super awkward and makes you "sound like a paranoid Luddite". That is catastrophizing, as evidenced by the anecdote in which the author says "yes I mind" and it is totally fine. Look, different people have different social norms, and while it is good to have boundaries and voice them, it is also good to try to understand where they're coming from, and not respond with "of course I fucking mind, how dare you!" To people like me, an AI transcription of a convo is simply not the same as a third person in the conversation. If you introspect for a bit, you can probably see how I could think the way I do. I certainly understand how someone can think AI is like a third person! If you take the time to understand where people are coming from, it will make it easier for you to politely establish your boundaries and also lower your blood pressure in general.

  by larkinnaire
• I rarely have online meetings, but what annoyed me most last time I did was that I had multiple AI note taking services magnanimously send me multiple emails each telling me how if I signed up for their service they could share their meeting notes with me. It wasn't even that important of a meeting!
  by Jap2-0
• I love having a 3rd person in an interview. If they are taking notes, I can have a conversation with the candidate.
  by jms703
• I use it in my professional appointments. If someone asked me not to, I'd turn it off. It makes the flow of the appointment much better than if I try to write the notes as we go, and if I don't write then and there, something will probably be left out.

  Edited to add, I don't see what problem the OP has, unless they're just uncomfortable saying no.

  by projektfu
• > I don't see what problem the OP has

  OP's problem seems to be that there is an assumption that they are okay with being recorded, which is their very first argument in this article. What's more, with the attitude you apparently have, we should expect more incidents such as this:

  https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/1um3anj/...

  This whole "it makes the flow of the appointment much better" argument is one that I assume you'll use to justify this default position of recording others without clear consent. Clear consent, mind you, is receiving a "yes".. as opposed to saying "they didn't say no".

  Consent doesn't happen just because someone didn't say no.

  > If someone asked me not to, I'd turn it off

  Case in point.. you've admitted to recording before receiving affirmative consent.

  by infinite_spin
• This is a reply to someone else's blog post (on a different site - odd concept, I kinda like it though). It may add a lot of context to read the original blog post https://www.joanwestenberg.com/p/im-begging-you-to-leave-you... first, which is linked in the header but easy to miss, and then read this reply.
  by zamadatix
• OMG are people actually doing this for personal chats? That's psychotic.
  by advisedwang
• I agree with some points being made and disagree with others.

  Professionals should be using the best tools they're comfortable using. If that means your therapist can ask better questions and make better use of their time because they have a STT model running, I think that's great, counter to the author. Importantly though, in therapy especially, your comfort matters more than time efficiency, and can understand asking for it to be disabled.

  Catching up at a coffee shop does not need STT, I agree with OP...but are people really doing this? Sure, there's a few AI obsessed geeks doing it I'm sure, but is that really a main use-case of these devices?

  by dpoloncsak
• I’ve found no value in AI note takers. I’m not really sure what the value of a note taker is when you can simply transcribe the entire meeting and search within context.

  For me, the value of notes is writing down what’s important to me/the participants, including the actual process.

  by SkyPuncher
• I have mixed feelings on this (I have some relatives in the medical industry). On the one hand, having a professional scribe is absolutely a positive for the provider, provided they have been trained and are accustomed to that provider. They take away significant cognitive load from them, leaving them able to focus on the patient.

  With the proliferation of AI note taking, this advantage purports to have been democratized, but I'm not quite convinced. Since AI summaries are far from infallible, a mistake is bound to sneak in here and there (note that these aren't mere transcripts, but summaries split into sections). The provider may or may not go in and clean up your AI notes afterwards, any mistakes made by AI are effectively disowned in terms of responsibility, and admin will still pressure providers using these note takers as leverage to be able to see more patients than otherwise possible (admins want to see both lower costs and higher patients seen per day).

  When you refuse this type of service, you're demanding a higher bar for your notes, but it comes at the cost of a distracted provider (who has grown accustomed to AI note taking, and only has so many hands, so they have to go back to the keyboard every now and then after checking your body).

  In summary I think it comes down to how much you care about note quality versus care quality, which is likely different per person. I don't have any allergies, am not on any medications, and generally only go in for routine checkups, so in my case the notes are more or less a bureaucratic requirement that I'm happy to do away with cheaply. For others this may not be the case, and having quality notes may be critical to their care, in which case they should definitely refuse AI scribes.

  Of course, none of what I said goes into privacy, which is a significant matter. However, "iPad scribes" which are essentially third party contractors remotely taking care of the notes already exist, so those concerns which arise even without the use of AI are a bit of a different topic.

  by 1024bits