Digital White Papers

I L T A W H I T E P A P E R & S U R V E Y R E S U L T S | L I T I G A T I O N & P R A C T I C E S U P P O R T 7 I L T A ' S 2 0 2 3 L I T I G A T I O N & P R A C T I C E S U P P O R T S U R V E Y R E S U L T S Evidence Authentication in 2024 & Beyond by Monique Sever Generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) burst on the scene in 2022/23 in a way we have not seen in decades. How will we deal with the newer data types produced by Gen AI and metadata (if it even exists)? Having the technology to summarize a document or a transcript of testimony and pull relevant points with only little or no guidance from humans may be a great next step. But what happens when we have evidentiary data that doesn't conform to the typical data we are used to dealing with? What about defamation where we need to prove that the person accused of defamation created that text or that photo or voice mail or video? How will we be able to use the traditional tools and processes we have, to prove this? That photo or voicemail could have been created by a Gen AI platform, but how will we go about proving (or disproving) that fact? The technology of generating near-human likeness will only continue to improve, and at a faster rate than most people fully realize. Consider a family matter where there are a lot of disagreements and strife in the litigation itself, never mind the underlying evidence proffered by each party. Legal teams that have been relying on the screenshot text message or the PDF copy of the email strings will be burdened with even more issues to consider when they are faced with information that may not indeed be the 'real thing' – and proving or disproving that will be the job of the legal team who is unable to even grasp the many advances in manufactured 'evidence'. I say this not to be critical of the legal team because even many eDiscovery stalwarts will struggle to decipher this new reality, we find ourselves in. Many types of litigation and investigations will most certainly change how we evaluate, identify, collect, process, and finally present the evidence we will begin to deal with. When we thought that the various communication platforms were going to be the most significant

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