Otter.AI/What do you think?

[Robert Wells]

Hi:

Recently I was in a Zoom meeting and one of the participants had deployed otter.AI ([https://otter.ai/] to attend the meeting autonomously to take notes. She was called upon in the meeting and the "bot" answered on her behalf.

I am really not sure what to think about this. A useful tool, but what about consent?

What do you think? Comments please.

Rob

[Chris Johnston]

I share your concerns Robert. In my experience, bots are either condoned or rejected depending on the nature of the meeting. Researchers particularly dislike them since it puts their unpublished research at risk.

Usually, the bot introduces itself with an opt-out for attendees, though it's not clear how reliable that is to be honest.

As a person with cognitive issues, I can see the benefits for the user, though I'd still want to attend personally, otherwise how would I know if it had hallucinated or misinterpreted parts of the discussions. I wouldn't want it to reply on my behalf and wouldn't feel comfortable accepting responses from bots on behalf of others.

As a participant, I have reached out on a couple of occasions to project leads to check if the person deploying had sought permission, and if any consideration to consent has been given. On one occasion they had and there was an adequate rationale. On another it triggered a discussion at the next meeting, and bots were voted to be excluded unless prior permission was granted. In both instances permission covered note-taking only and not direct responses from the bot.

Definitely it's something to watch for the future, since their use is noticeably increasing.