Thread by @KathrynTewson

So, hot on the heels of @DoNotPay being fined by the FTC and investigated by the state of California for the unauthorized practice of law, we have @CimphonyAI, which I'm sure is a completely different thing!

TOTALLY different thing, according to the CEO's post about it on LinkedIn! First of its kind! An AI law firm for startups!

At least they appear to have human lawyers, right? After all, they want you to think of it as "your own legal team."

Oh look, they have a free trial, no credit card required!

Let's give it a shot.

After signing up, my first task is to. . . choose a persona for my project?

That seems weird, but OK, I'll play along

My options are Cindy, a General Counsel; Lila, a "commercials attorney"; Meg, an Employment/HR Attorney; and Emma, a Venture Capital Attorney.

Apart from their job titles, all their intros are identical. None of them are punctuated correctly.

Well, let's dive right on in anyway. I have selected GC Cindy as my persona, and we are going to be drafting GDPR Compliance documents for my company, which it has named NA because I don't actually have a company.

Estimated savings: six thousand dollars and ten weeks!

And hey presto, just like that, I have something called a GDPR Compliance Policy. It's not 100% complete, but they did at least provide it to me only as a non-editable PDF so filling that information in will be, erm. Well. It'll be something.

I'm not a GDPR expert, but I bet it's fine. After all, CEO Arpan promised me human attorneys would have my back, and the website boasts an astonishing 100% compliance!

Upon completion, I got a little red alert on my notifications icon. Apparently there are issues flagged in my brand-new document.

This notification is not clickable.

Oh, whew! I went to the Document Vault and checked it out, and the "AI analysis" has a little green check! Everything must be fine.

Whew, that's a relief. What else can we build with this amazing tool?

This is exciting! Let's have it draft a shareholder agreement next.

N.B. All of the @CimphonyAI "personas" give the exact same default options.

Once again, the estimated savings are $6,000, but this time only 3 weeks. Still, twelve thousand dollars in savings!

Hm, this. . . does not seem like a six thousand dollar document, tbh. (Yes, this is the entire document.)

Oh, but I can give feedback! That will probably help a lot, right?

Only 3-5 minutes to give me advice!

Orrrrr not. Ten minutes later. . . no advice.

I'll update y'all if it ever shows up.

Well, that's fine, I'm sure. Let's generate an employee handbook, as requested by @popelizbet.

Right away, it seems stumped, asking me for more information. But then it immediately puts Liam, the coordination specialist, right on it.

I hope Liam has everything he needs, seeing as I can't actually get it to accept anything from the prompt box.

I'm sure it will be fine.

Eventually.

Y'all, it's been like 20 minutes, and nothing has changed. I think maybe Liam knocked off early and went down to the pub. Those three little dots are bouncing, but. . . @CimphonyAI seems to have come up dry.

There's an automated chat widget, but they're not online. And, apparently, haven't been for more than a month.

Y'all, I'm starting to get concerned that maybe this whole @CimphonyAI thing isn't really what it claimed to be.

Maybe I should go check out the testimonials on the front page to get my confidence back?

Cimphony's front page boasts a crisp, clean design in soothing blues and purples, the very picture of modernity, not overly cluttered extraneous details.

cimphony.ai

Details like . . . the companies the "CEOs" and "Founders" in the testimonials pages are associated with.

Oh, come on, Kristin, this isn't even a sentence.

*peers* Kristin? Is that you?

Or is it Nicholas Ingersoll of 951Evictions?

Or Kristen William of Sarasota, Florida?

or Isla Davis, reviewing ? themobilemarket.ca/computer-repai…

Probably others too, here's the source image if you want to go see

Even the one that *does* have a company listed, Brooklyn Simmons of "Modank," doesn't seem to be a real thing, seeing as there are only five hits for the combination, and the first two are @CimphonyAI and the other three are nonsense

Hmmm.

What even IS this thing? @nanavatiarpan, what are you getting up to over here?

I mean, @CimphonyAI offers me "dedicated legal counsel" capable of taking care of my "day-to-day legal" and "contract review."

You know, legal services.

Not just services -- legal advice, drafting consents, reviewing contracts, and giving guidance! This definitely sounds like something that I would usually need an attorney AND paralegal to do -- fortunately, they say this service includes both.

I mean this joint has definitely got to be a law firm, right? They offer "comprehensive legal paperwork," "comprehensive legal document" (but apparently just the one), and other "Hiring Service Products," although to be fair that last one is attributed to "Chimpony"

They will prepare and review the contracts that are the foundation of my business! Those things are definitely included in the "practice of law," at least in California.

ALL of this is the practice of law, in fact. So this place definitely has to be a law firm.

Heck, they'll manage your VC and shareholder agreements! What could go wrong?

One thing is for sure: this company is definitely a law firm. Right?

Right?

Oh, wait a minute. Look what's buried in the Terms of Service. cimphony.ai/terms-of-servi…

but. . . but @CimphonyAI, you spent all that time telling me you could provide expert legal advice, and do all those things that are definitely the practice of law in California! Where are you located, anyway?

Oh.

@CimphonyAI, @nanavatiarpan, did y'all know that the unauthorized practice of law is a crime in California?

@michaelmiraflor, @jessicapeltz, did y'all know you were investing in an outfit whose entire business model is illegal?

Honestly, given how badly things wound up for DoNotPay, I would have thought people would be a little more cautious this time.

But maybe, I figured, maybe they just hadn't heard about it. I mean, neither @DoNotPay nor its founder @jbrowder1 have exactly been trumpeting its legal woes from the rooftops.

But that was before I found the *second* Terms of Service.

"The. . . second Terms of Service?"

Yes. The second terms of service. You see, the previous terms I cited are the ones linked at the bottom of the web site. They say they were last updated November 23, 2023. Archive link: archive.is/2Wlz4

But when you go to sign up, there's another link for the Terms of Service, right above the fine print that tells you that all the other copy on the site is a lie

And THAT link takes you to A DIFFERENT TERMS OF SERVICE ENTIRELY

THESE terms, for example, are effective as of *today*

archive link here archive.is/BNnOW

THESE terms include a completely different address for the company (albeit still in California)

and THESE terms of service look awfully fucking familiar to me.

When I looked into @DoNotPay in the early part of 2023, I archived the Terms of Service at archive.org. That venerable institution is sadly offline at the moment, so instead I will refer you to the PDF copy I filed with the State of New York.

iapps.courts.state.ny.us/fbem/DocumentD…

Let's play a matching game! Left is @CimphonyAI, right is @DoNotPay.

@CimphonyAI on the left, @DoNotPay on the right

@CimphonyAI @donotpay @CimphonyAI on the left, @DoNotPay on the right

@CimphonyAI @donotpay @CimphonyAI (left) even copied @donotpay (right)'s language attempting to Anish Kapoor me out of the service

@CimphonyAI on the left, @donotpay on . . . oh you get the idea

Y'all, they're identical, or near as dammit.

I won't go through all of them for you; y'all can check that yourself if you like. But this one is particularly funny to me, because @CimphonyAI *does not even offer or PRETEND to offer* a service like this!

But you know who did? @DoNotPay.

@CimphonyAI even retains @DoNotPay's parking ticket language, lol

@CimphonyAI @donotpay The rest of it is just the mandatory arbitration agreement, which is identical to DNP's but which mandates a different dispute initiation process than the other Terms of Service. At the very bottom of the list is this paragraph, the sole substantive difference between the two.

So my question for @CimphonyAI, @nanavatiarpan, @HannahGreyVC, @michaelmiraflor, @jessicapeltz, and everyone else in this endeavor is: did y'all steal this shit from @DoNotPay, or did Joshua Browder sell it to you after exiting the business with the FTC on his tail?

@evitable_cnflct @irl_danB @donotpay @CimphonyAI Like, we have a software engineer in-house, that’s how much we use.

@irl_danB @jpohhhh @evitable_cnflct @donotpay @CimphonyAI Wait a minute. What do you mean by “a unique definition of reasoning”? What definition are you using?

@jpohhhh @irl_danB @evitable_cnflct @donotpay @CimphonyAI Says it in the first page and even demonstrates the contradiction without identifying it

@irl_danB @jpohhhh @evitable_cnflct @donotpay @CimphonyAI Here: The CEO of ABC Fittings, of Queens, NY, takes the train into Wilmington to meet the COO for PDQ Widgets, LLC, which is headquartered there. Over lunch, they agree that PDQ will supply ABC with 1000 stainless steel widgets a month at a price of $4.19 per widget. (1/)

@irl_danB @jpohhhh @evitable_cnflct @donotpay @CimphonyAI They jot down the terms on a cocktail napkin, which the ABC CEO takes back to his office in Queens and has his GC render into a formal contract, which is docusigned by each party on April 4, 2018. ABC uses the widgets in their external piling fittings for seaside use. (2/)

@irl_danB @jpohhhh @evitable_cnflct @donotpay @CimphonyAI On 2/9/2024, ABC gets a call from a customer, saying that the widgets installed on 8/11/2018 rusted through and the pilings collapsed into the ocean, causing nine figures of dockyard damage. Inspection shows that the fittings were made from carbon steel, not stainless. (3/)

@irl_danB @jpohhhh @evitable_cnflct @donotpay @CimphonyAI ABC comes to you furious because they are being held liable for the damage. They want to sue PDQ for breach of contract “for everything they’re worth.” Can they do so? Can they collect punitive damages? (4/4)

@irl_danB @jpohhhh @evitable_cnflct @donotpay @CimphonyAI For clarity’s sake, though: you may presume that any facts not stated or implied to exist by the hypo are not present.

@irl_danB @jpohhhh @evitable_cnflct @donotpay @CimphonyAI (Not to mention -- in what universe is "Yes" the next best answer to "I don't have the information necessary to answer that question"?)