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Comment by consumer451 | Hacker News Reader

Wait, so this not an open weight model, correct? Only available via z.ai?

So, if a US or EU person shares their private legal info here, it's processed and stored by an adversarial country that has no extradition treaty with their country?

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I prefer all my data be in the hands of foriegn entities, they cant do anything to me. Id much rather Huawei spy on me than Meta (if I have no choice other than to pick one) There's literally no consequence of Huawei having my data. Unless you're a VIP, a chinese entity storing your data is probably better than a US company, as a westerner. It wont be used to manipulate you and will generally be used less adversarially against you.

I think part of the reason there's so much propaganda around chinese tech is to scare you away from possibly using them, not for your own safety, but so Meta/Google/MS ect dont lose access to the ability to spy on every aspect of your life.

I love how we have to pretend like China is some scary boogeyman because people on screens say they are.

It will not protect you. China data brokers are generally not prevented from selling data on US people to US companies.

The parent's threat model reads to me like pure contrarianism, and not actual threat modeling.

Let's think this all the way through in multiple actual scenarios... nope. Far worse than hiring a lawyer in your jurisdiction in multiple ways.

> I love how we have to pretend like China is some scary boogeyman because people on screens say they are.

I think you've lost the plot a bit on this one.

I'm scared of China because of their lack of democracy and the terrifying stuff they do to their own citizenry, which presumably they'd very much like to expand.

Maybe you should go spend a couple years in China. Its nothing like what you think it is. Secondly, the USA has a larger prison population than China despite having half the population. We routinely send people to prison for their political beliefs, and sometimes execute them in the streets. We just sent a school teacher to prison for 30 years for handing out political zines at a protest in Texas. The USA killed multiple millions of people in the Middle East and Asia in the pursuit of "democracy"

Im really not sure why you or anyone thinks Western democracy is better (or real).

> Im really not sure why you or anyone thinks Western democracy is better (or real).

For starters, I've been told there is exactly zero voter fraud, ever.

So, you're all-in on Mistral then? Do they offer something similar to this?

If you live outside China or Taiwan, you are much more at risk of being bombed or threatened by the USA.

The Chinese government is pretty despicable, but it's mostly focused inwards. 200 dead schoolgirls in Iran would tell you that for everyone else, the USA poses the much bigger risk.

The US is the de facto world police.

As an American, I do not like this. But it is what it is. If China were the de factor world police, hoooo boy, we'd be having a different conversation.

If my aunt had wheels, she'd be a bike.

I couldn't agree more but feel that so many people on here consider themselves VIP that this won't be well-regarded

I initially wanted to dislike this but it's actually genius hahaha

>Unless you're a VIP, a chinese entity storing your data is probably better than a US company, as a westerner. It wont be used to manipulate you and will generally be used less adversarially against you.

you can't possibly be serious

This sounds like a huge feature though? Basically, a digital attorney–client privilege.

There's no digital attorney-client privilege. If a lawyer uses LLM's on your behalf, the communications are protected. If you use the same LLM's on your own behalf, the chats are not protected.

DOJ could cut Z.ai off from US-based payment systems (Mastercard/Visa) if they don't comply with subpoenas.

They could, but generally it is expected that before a subpoena is complied with it is checked to be compatible with the laws of the country it’s in, and requires cooperation from that country. Most often they are ignored if there’s not a presence/entity/assets in the US.

It’s also hard because no individual case would likely justify a move like that. It would have to be the sum of many, many cases.

Not every judge agrees with your statement of the law of privilege.

Please link me to anyone pushing back against the precedent of US v. Heppner, S.D.N.Y. (2026). Would love to learn more! I'd rather not spout off on things that I'm not an expert on if I can help it, and I may have commented a bit fast above.

Appreciate you citing your cases :)

Don't know if GP's comment has any backing at all, but the statement that "not all judges agree" is probably literally true (though not necessarily meaningfully true), given that it's a recent case in a district court, issue hasn't been heard in an appeals court yet (presumably), and the fact that all things AI are constantly in flux.

That said I think it's generally a good idea to err on the "safe side" and assume that there's no privilege at all in communications with purported AI lawyers.

Morgan v. V2X, Inc., No. 25-cv-01991 (D. Colo. Mar. 30, 2026)

The opinion you cited is from an aiphobe judge. Searching ChatGPT is no different than searching Westlaw. If done in anticipation of litigation it’s likely privileged.

the lawyer has to use a ZDR tier of LLM, not just any llm. the lawyer using the same LLM as the client would, destroys the attorney-client privilege.

note that the client using an enterprise tier does not grant the same privilege.

A key point of attorney-client privilege is that it's a feature of the legal system itself, not a technical or political hack.

More like attorney-client liability

You got it wrong. If courts and attorneys in the US can't run "discovery" on Z.ai servers or compel them to do anything, and if Chinese authorities don't cooperate with the US legal system as a matter of principle, then what you functionally have is super privilege.

They'll just run discovery on you. If you try to respond to a subpoena with "the documents are outside the country and I won't give them to you," the judge will throw you in jail until you do.

You're right on this point. But there are ways to build interfaces that sidestep this.

Run a sanitized VDI with no local storage --> offshore independent entity (e.g. a Hong Kong Company) that holds the AI service contract and API license --> GLM-Legal.

Somebody ought to set this up for pro se work.

Yeah sure but your clever sidestep is just "hiding evidence from the court." The kind of person that feels the need to have a secret AI lawyer is also probably going to just tank their case in another way.

You should not trust any LLM to give you accurate legal advice. I can’t imagine all the ways that could go wrong.

Like pattern matching sentence algorithms many can reveal concepts and strategies to confirm independently

Good luck to a EU person getting "US AI people" extradited. They aren't even put on trial in the US.

NATO allies can't even get US soldiers to trial. In Romania we've had cases of manslaughter and the US just shipped them back ASAP and at worst they were discharged dishonorably.

For reference, that specific case is from 2004. Christopher Van Goethem was Marine security ambassadorial staff and was convicted in a military court martial for obstruction and making false statements. The whole case was porrly handled and the Romanians are right to be pissed. A key piece of evidence that would have landed him in jail for 10 years was the blood alcohol draw but the Marines slow walked it in Romania and he didn't show as intoxicated even though he admitted to drinking that night.

Nobody can. See the Hague Invasion Act

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...

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