Inaugural Issue: Introducing My Copula AI
Also, on being published at the Harvard Law School Bankruptcy Roundtable
In this first issue of the Copula AI monthly newsletter, I am pleased to announce the launch of My Copula AI! My Copula AI is our brand-new hosted service that deploys for you a ChatGPT-style Q&A website that runs off your docs.
In the rest of the issue, I discuss our being featured at a Harvard Law School publication, explain what data-centric AI is, and briefly touch on what's next for Copula AI.
How My Copula AI works
After signing in at https://my.copula.ai, you can share a Google Drive folder with the service. Within one business day, your website at my.copula.ai/your-project will be live and ready to take questions from visitors. Answers are fetched from the docs in your Google Drive folder, using our generative AI techniques.
You get to control how your site looks—see below for an example. This Copula AI powered site is live at https://my.copula.ai/clinically.
Harvard Law School Bankruptcy Roundtable: ChatLaw
The Harvard Law School Bankruptcy Roundtable published my article Can AI Help Explain Bankruptcy Law?1 I wrote how AI can help both newbies and experts access knowledge encoded in imposing tomes of text. The article features ChatLaw, the biggest Copula AI powered site, that knows everything about US bankruptcy law2.
ChatLaw got a good amount of traffic following that publicity, and we saw both sophisticated and simple questions. For example:
QUESTION: D generates enough cash to pay operating expenses, but not enough to pay old debt. D owes F $40M, and has given F a lien on all assets. You represent F. What do you ask for in a stipulation when D asks for consent to use cash collateral?
and
QUESTION: Explain the US bankruptcy law.
My attorney friends say that ChatLaw performs splendidly on the difficult questions; I personally found it great at explaining simple concepts as well. For example, consider ChatLaw’s reply to Explain the US bankruptcy law. It alone, among other sites like Bard and ChatGPT, notes that bankruptcy law derives from the Constitution. I reproduce the full answer in the Appendix.
Data-Centric AI (and, Retrieval-Augmented Generation)
Data-Centric AI is a term coined by Andrew Ng, to spotlight AI applications where the data used is systematically selected. I do not find the formal definition of the term3 coherent, but the general idea does apply to Copula AI's system.
When Copula AI fetches an answer to your question from a set of docs, it employs a two step procedure. In the first step, the retrieval step, it finds the 7 or so pages in the docs that are most relevant to your question. To accomplish this, a machine-learning algorithm called embedding vector similarity search is used.
In the second step, called the generation step, the 7 or so pages together with your question are sent to an LLM (like GPT-4). The LLM is prompted to generate a reply to the question using the content in the ~7 pages. Copula AI presents the LLM's subsequent response to you. The schematic below4 shows the flow of operations, dubbed Retrieval-Augmented Generation in the academic literature.
Because the AI is constrained to information within the selected ~7 pages, it does not hallucinate and make up an unfounded response. Also, the ~7 selected pages are made available to the user to serve as an audit. So, we are quite data-centric; centric to your documents.
What's Next for Copula AI
We will shortly announce My Copula AI more widely. Several early beta users have already kicked the tires.
As this particular product sprint is concluding, I will start spending more of my time on fundraising and recruiting. Drop me a line if you have any leads.
We will engage in some marketing efforts as well—we have some ideas for making My Copula AI go viral. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, have a good Thanksgiving.
Appendix: ChatLaw Explaining US Bankruptcy Law
QUESTION: Explain the US bankruptcy law.
ChatLaw: The US bankruptcy law is a federal law that governs the process of bankruptcy, which is a legal proceeding involving a person or business that is unable to repay their outstanding debts. The law is derived from the Constitution itself, specifically Article I, which authorizes Congress to pass uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies (Paragon Offshore PLC, et al., Paragon Litigation Trust, Plaintiff v. Noble Corporation PLC, Noble Corporation Holdings LTD., et al., 03/11/2019).
The Bankruptcy Code, as part of the bankruptcy law, is designed to help a debtor make a fresh start while ensuring the maximum possible equitable distribution to creditors. This is achieved by exercising jurisdiction over all of the debtor's property (Central Va. Community College v. Katz, 546 U.S. 356, 363-364, 2006).
Under section 727(a)(5) of the Bankruptcy Code, a debtor is ineligible to receive a discharge if the debtor has failed to explain satisfactorily, any loss of assets or deficiency of assets to meet the debtor's liabilities (Herzog v. Ferguson, 2021).
The Bankruptcy Code also establishes a basic quid pro quo. A debtor seeking bankruptcy relief must disclose all its creditors, its assets and liabilities, its current income and expenditures, and matters relating to its financial affairs (11 U.S.C. 521(a)). In exchange, the debtor may receive a discharge of its debts, except for those that Congress deemed nondischargeable as a matter of public policy, such as an individual debtor's debts for money obtained by fraud (11 U.S.C. 523(a)(2)(A); see 11 U.S.C. 1141(d)).
The Code grants the benefit of a discharge only to a debtor who has assumed bankruptcy's burdens. The Code releases a debtor from personal liability with respect to any discharged debt by voiding any past or future judgments on the debt and by operating as an injunction to prohibit creditors from attempting to collect or to recover the debt (Tennessee Student Assistance Corp. v. Hood, 541 U.S. 440, 447, 2004).
In the case of business entities such as trusts, their eligibility to be a debtor under the Bankruptcy Code is determined by the state law under which the entity exists, unless there is a clear directive otherwise (EHT US1, Inc., et al., Debtors, 06/01/2021).
In conclusion, the US bankruptcy law is a comprehensive system designed to balance the interests of both debtors and creditors, providing a mechanism for debtors to discharge their debts and make a fresh start, while ensuring an equitable distribution of assets to creditors.
Can AI Help Explain Bankruptcy Law? Deepak Subburam, 10/17/2023.
https://bankruptcyroundtable.law.harvard.edu/2023/10/17/can-ai-help-explain-bankruptcy-law/
https://chatlaw.us is curated by Greg Zipes, an adjunct professor at the NYU School of Professional Studies who teaches the Bankruptcy and Workouts class.
See Andrew’s company’s explanation: https://landing.ai/data-centric-ai/
This is from the medrXiv preprint I co-authored:
ChatENT: Augmented Large Language Model for Expert Knowledge Retrieval in Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.08.18.23294283v2