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Another example of "ChatGPT for open-ended law": https://broodingomnipresence.substack.com/p/brooding-omnipresent-ai https://broodingomnipresence.substack.com/p

Another example of "ChatGPT for open-ended law": https://broodingomnipresence.substack.com/p/brooding-omnipresent-ai https://broodingomnipresence.substack.com/p/brooding-omnipre... Tangentially related: DoNotPay's (probably illegal) plans to use LLMs in actual court sessions https://twitter.com/jbrowder1/status/1612312707398795264 https://twitter.com/jbrowder1/status/1612312707398795264

wyager 4y ago
Whether or not it's illegal, the ABA looks out for its own, and they would never permit AI to threaten the comfortable arrangement they've made for members of their industry. The legal profession is not only self-regulating, but since they make up like 95% of legislators, they get to regulate everyone else too! Very masterful, even more so than the AMA
- bawolff 4y ago
  I highly doubt chatgpt is even remotely near being a lawyer. Lawyering is all about logical argument from a specific context and nitpicky details, which chatgpt is known to be bad at. Anyways it probably should be illegal if someone is selling "legal services" but not doing it properly for the same reason that if a dr just did what chat-gpt said, that should also be illegal.
  - wonderwonder 4y ago
    What if in 10 years that version of it better than a real lawyer? 10 years is a long time in ai today
    - asadlionpk 4y ago
      certainly won't be the transformer models (alone)
    - bawolff 4y ago
      The future is unknowable. I have my doubts, but ultimately that is a bridge to cross when and if we get there. Notwithstanding how impressive chatgpt is, right now we are nowhere near that bridge so no point speculating.
- edrxty 4y ago
  It'll be extremely telling to see how they handle the introduction of AI in the coming years. Lawyers could very well find themselves being the first group of truly upper crust white collar professionals decimated and yet they also have the highest potential for protectionism. This is really shaping up to be the most spectacular tech vs establishment fights we've seen in a long while.
  - jamesliudotcc 4y ago
    The disruption will be from within the legal profession. Some lawyers will gain a great deal. Others will lose a great deal. There is a lot of differentiation in terms of the level of skill and effort legal work takes. Some firms will specialize in automating away routine legal work, and have just enough lawyers to comply with unauthorized-practice-of-law laws. High value legal work still contains a lot of grunt work, which will also become more automated. Already partners at big firms review the work of a pyramid of lawyers and non-lawyers. Many of those tasks can be done by an LLM instead. As long as the partner signs the result, it is the same. As these partners learn to trust the LLMs more than the humans, a lot of human jobs will fall by the wayside. A lot of legal work is already copy-paste from form books or other prior art, with a lot of filling in the blanks, search-replace, and so on. What is the difference between that and using an LLM to draft the document? Was that integration clause from the form book carefully reviewed by a human lawyer to make sure it fit the situation? No. Many law firms have a deep library of forms that are battle tested, and lawyers of long experience know what provisions are good and which may not survive a court challenge. That kind of contextual know-how is what you are paying for. Why not use the adversarial techniques from deep learning to analyze how various provisions have actually performed over time? Then generate the document based on that statistical knowledge, with highlighting to show what is risky in a document? Why pay for an expensive lawyer when a cheap one will do that work for you and can give you that explanation, plus alternative legal provisions? I am out of the profession because I did not want to be on the automated-out side. If there is automating to be done, why not do the automating?
- grej 4y ago
  I agree, but what if in 2-3 years, a lowly ranked state college law school grad + LawGPT is perceived to be better than an Ivy grad? (Edit: perceived, because that matters for prestige and this billing, and I think the law school rankings may in many cases convey tiers that aren't really there)
- mc32 4y ago
  Tough call, I think. All you need is some greed and people who don't care about what happens to the future. You ambulance chasing lawyers (aka personal injury lawyers) are not the same as your big lawfirm partner. We've seen many instances of larger populations get sold down the river (many examples in outsourcing)
- rayiner 4y ago
  The ABA doesn’t regulate the practice of law. Its only real power is accrediting law schools, and on that front it has done such a poor job at protectionism that there’s twice as many law school graduates each year as jobs. If you just need someone who can pass the bar exam, you can hire one on Craigslist for way cheaper than an electrician, plumber, or IT guy.
paranoidrobot 4y ago
> Tangentially related: DoNotPay's (probably illegal) plans to use LLMs in actual court sessions Steve Lehto put up a video[1] two days ago about this and explained a few problems with it. The first hurdle they've got, is that in most (all?) courtrooms you can't have your phone on. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=425O2e87uBM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=425O2e87uBM

wyager 4y ago

Whether or not it's illegal, the ABA looks out for its own, and they would never permit AI to threaten the comfortable arrangement they've made for members of their industry. The legal profession is not only self-regulating, but since they make up like 95% of legislators, they get to regulate everyone else too! Very masterful, even more so than the AMA

bawolff 4y ago
I highly doubt chatgpt is even remotely near being a lawyer. Lawyering is all about logical argument from a specific context and nitpicky details, which chatgpt is known to be bad at. Anyways it probably should be illegal if someone is selling "legal services" but not doing it properly for the same reason that if a dr just did what chat-gpt said, that should also be illegal.
- wonderwonder 4y ago
  What if in 10 years that version of it better than a real lawyer? 10 years is a long time in ai today
  - asadlionpk 4y ago
    certainly won't be the transformer models (alone)
  - bawolff 4y ago
    The future is unknowable. I have my doubts, but ultimately that is a bridge to cross when and if we get there. Notwithstanding how impressive chatgpt is, right now we are nowhere near that bridge so no point speculating.
edrxty 4y ago
It'll be extremely telling to see how they handle the introduction of AI in the coming years. Lawyers could very well find themselves being the first group of truly upper crust white collar professionals decimated and yet they also have the highest potential for protectionism. This is really shaping up to be the most spectacular tech vs establishment fights we've seen in a long while.
- jamesliudotcc 4y ago
  The disruption will be from within the legal profession. Some lawyers will gain a great deal. Others will lose a great deal. There is a lot of differentiation in terms of the level of skill and effort legal work takes. Some firms will specialize in automating away routine legal work, and have just enough lawyers to comply with unauthorized-practice-of-law laws. High value legal work still contains a lot of grunt work, which will also become more automated. Already partners at big firms review the work of a pyramid of lawyers and non-lawyers. Many of those tasks can be done by an LLM instead. As long as the partner signs the result, it is the same. As these partners learn to trust the LLMs more than the humans, a lot of human jobs will fall by the wayside. A lot of legal work is already copy-paste from form books or other prior art, with a lot of filling in the blanks, search-replace, and so on. What is the difference between that and using an LLM to draft the document? Was that integration clause from the form book carefully reviewed by a human lawyer to make sure it fit the situation? No. Many law firms have a deep library of forms that are battle tested, and lawyers of long experience know what provisions are good and which may not survive a court challenge. That kind of contextual know-how is what you are paying for. Why not use the adversarial techniques from deep learning to analyze how various provisions have actually performed over time? Then generate the document based on that statistical knowledge, with highlighting to show what is risky in a document? Why pay for an expensive lawyer when a cheap one will do that work for you and can give you that explanation, plus alternative legal provisions? I am out of the profession because I did not want to be on the automated-out side. If there is automating to be done, why not do the automating?
grej 4y ago
I agree, but what if in 2-3 years, a lowly ranked state college law school grad + LawGPT is perceived to be better than an Ivy grad? (Edit: perceived, because that matters for prestige and this billing, and I think the law school rankings may in many cases convey tiers that aren't really there)
mc32 4y ago
Tough call, I think. All you need is some greed and people who don't care about what happens to the future. You ambulance chasing lawyers (aka personal injury lawyers) are not the same as your big lawfirm partner. We've seen many instances of larger populations get sold down the river (many examples in outsourcing)
rayiner 4y ago
The ABA doesn’t regulate the practice of law. Its only real power is accrediting law schools, and on that front it has done such a poor job at protectionism that there’s twice as many law school graduates each year as jobs. If you just need someone who can pass the bar exam, you can hire one on Craigslist for way cheaper than an electrician, plumber, or IT guy.

paranoidrobot 4y ago

> Tangentially related: DoNotPay's (probably illegal) plans to use LLMs in actual court sessions Steve Lehto put up a video[1] two days ago about this and explained a few problems with it. The first hurdle they've got, is that in most (all?) courtrooms you can't have your phone on. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=425O2e87uBM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=425O2e87uBM