7 ms·

I wouldn't blindly trust what the LLM says, but I take it that it would be mostly right, and that would give me at the very least explorable vocabulary that I c

I wouldn't blindly trust what the LLM says, but I take it that it would be mostly right, and that would give me at the very least explorable vocabulary that I can expand on my own, or keep grilling it about. I've already used some LLMs to ask questions about licenses and legal consequences for software related matters, and it gave me a base, without having to involve a very expensive professional into it for what are mostly questions for hobby things I'm doing. If there was a significant amount of money involved in the decision, though, I will of course use the services of a professional. These are the kinds of topics you can't be "mostly right".

nprateem 3y ago
The only problems are it could be convincingly wrong about anything it tells you and isn't liable for its mistakes.
- sonofaragorn 3y ago
  What if they were liable? Say the company that offers the LLM lawyer is liable. Would that make this feasible? In terms of being convincingly wrong, it's not like lawyers never make mistakes...
  - giantg2 3y ago
    "What if they were liable?" They'd be sued out of existence. "In terms of being convincingly wrong, it's not like lawyers never make mistakes..." They have malpractice insurance, they can potentially defend their position if later sued, and most importantly they have the benefit of appeal to authority image/perception.
    - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
      All right, what if legal GPTs had to carry malpractice insurance? Either they give good advice, or the insurance rates will drive them out of business. I guess you'd have to have some way of knowing that the "malpractice insurance ID" that the GPT gave you at the start of the session was in fact valid, and with an insurance company that had the resources to actually cover if needed...
      - kulikalov 3y ago
        It's funny how any conversation ends with this question unanswered.
        YetAnotherNick 3y ago
        Weirdly HN is full of anti AI people who just refuses to discuss the point that is being discussed and goes into all the same argument of wrong answer that they got some time. And then they present anecdotal evidence as truth, while there is no clear evidence if AI lawyer has more or less chance to be wrong than human. Surely AI could remember more and has been shown to clear bar examination.
        giantg2 3y ago
        "while there is no clear evidence if AI lawyer has more or less chance to be wrong than human." In the tests they are shown to be pretty close. The point I made wasn't about more mistakes, but about other factors influencing liability and how it would be worse for AI than humans at this point.
        YetAnotherNick 3y ago
        > at this point. This is the key point. Even if assume the AI won't get better, the liability and insurance premiums will likely become similar in very near future. There is a clear business opportunity that's there in insuring AI lawyer.
  - naniwaduni 3y ago
    You'd require them to carry liability insurance (this is usually true for meat lawyers as well), which basically punts the problem up to "how good do they have to be to convince an insurer to offer them an appropriate amount of insurance at a price that leaves the service economically viable?"
    - kulikalov 3y ago
      Given orders of magnitude better cost efficiency, they will have plenty of funds to lure in any insurance firm in existence. And then replace insurance firms too.
- engineer_22 3y ago
  This is an area for further development and thought... If a LLM can pass the bar, and has a corpus of legal work instantly accessible, what prevents the deployment of the LLM (or other AI structure) to provide legitimate legal services? If the AI is providing legal services, how do we assign responsibility for the work (to the AI, or to its owner)? How to insure the work for Errors and Omissions? More practically, if willing to take on responsibility for yourself, is the use of AI going to save you money?
  - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
    A human that screws up either too often or too spectacularly can be disbarred, even if they passed the bar. They can also be sued. If a GPT screws up, it could in theory be disbarred. But you can't sue it for damages, and you can't tell whether the same model under a different name is the next legal GPT you consult.
    - engineer_22 3y ago
      Agreed - which is why this is an area that needs more thought and development
  - nprateem 3y ago
    Re your first point: it's not conscious. It has no understanding. It's perfectly possible the model could successfully answer an exam question but fail to reach the same or similar conclusion when it has to reason it's own way there based on information provided.
    - mvdtnz 3y ago
      Careful, there are plenty of True Believers on this website who really think that these "guess the next word" machines really do have consciousness and understanding.
      - lewhoo 3y ago
        I incline towards you on the subject but if you call it guessing you open yourself up to all sorts of rebuttals.
- boplicity 3y ago
  The obvious intermediate step is that you add an actual expert into the workflow, in terms of using LLMs for this purpose. Basically, add a "validate" step. So, you'd first chat with the LLM, create conclusions, then vet those conclusions with an expert specially trained to be skeptical of LLM generated content. I would be shocked if there aren't law agencies that aren't already doing something exactly like this.
  - freejazz 3y ago
    Ah, so have the lawyer do everything the GPT did so the lawyer can be sure the GPT didn't fuck up.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
thallium205 3y ago
I wouldn't blindly trust what a lawyer says either so there's no difference there.
- brk 3y ago
  Sure, but you have a lot less personal risk following advice from a lawyer vs. advice from an LLM.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    When your GPT is wrong, you will be laughed out of the room and sanctioned. When your attorney is wrong, you get to point at the attorney and show a good faith effort was made. Hacks are fun, just keep in mind the domain you're operating in.
    - giantg2 3y ago
      "When your attorney is wrong, you get to point at the attorney and show a good faith effort was made." And possibly sue their insurance to correct their mistakes.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - Scoundreller 3y ago
        But you’ll have to find a lawyer that specializes in suing lawyers and their own malpractice plans. Maybe that’s where legal AI will find the most demand.
      - kulikalov 3y ago
        Can't a tech firm running a "legal gpt" have an insurance?
        toomuchtodo 3y ago
        Do they have a license to practice law?
mannykannot 3y ago
I like the term "explorable vocabulary." I can see using LLMs to get an idea of what the relevant issues are before I approach a professional, without assuming that any particular claim in the model's responses is correct.
chaxor 3y ago
I don't understand how everyone keeps making this mistake over and over. They explicitly just said "in 5-10 years". So many people continually use arguments that revolve around 'I used it once and it wasn't the best and/or me things up', and imply that this will always be the case. There are many solutions already for knowledge editing, there are many solutions for improving performance, and there will very likely continue to be many improvements across the board for this. It took ~5 years from when people in the NLP literature noticed BERT and knew the powerful applications that were coming, until the public at large was aware of the developments via ChatGPT. It may take another 5 before the public sees the developments happening now in the literature hit something in a companies web UI.
- mjr00 3y ago
  on the other hand the rate of change isn't constant and there isn't a guarantee that the incredible progress in the past ~2 years in the LLM/diffusion/"AI" space will continue. As an example, take computer gaming graphics; compare the evolution between Wolfenstein 3D (1992) and Quake 3 Arena (1999), which is an absolute quantum leap. Now compare Resident Evil 7 (2017) and Alan Wake 2 (2023) and it's an improvement but nowhere near the same scale. We've already seen a fair bit of stagnation in the past year as ChatGPT gets progressively worse as the company is more focusing on neutering results to limit its exposure to legal liability.
  - GaggiX 3y ago
    >ChatGPT gets progressively worse https://huggingface.co/spaces/lmsys/chatbot-arena-leaderboard https://huggingface.co/spaces/lmsys/chatbot-arena-leaderboar..., In blinded human comparisons, newer models perform better than older ones.
    - mvdtnz 3y ago
      That website doesn't load for me but anyone who uses ChatGPT semi regularly can see that it's getting steadily worse if you ever ask for anything that begins to border risque. It has even refused to provide me with things like bolt torque specs because of risk.
coffeebeqn 3y ago
I wonder could GPTs come up with legal loopholes. Like they are expected to come up with security vulnerabilities

nprateem 3y ago

The only problems are it could be convincingly wrong about anything it tells you and isn't liable for its mistakes.

sonofaragorn 3y ago
What if they were liable? Say the company that offers the LLM lawyer is liable. Would that make this feasible? In terms of being convincingly wrong, it's not like lawyers never make mistakes...
- giantg2 3y ago
  "What if they were liable?" They'd be sued out of existence. "In terms of being convincingly wrong, it's not like lawyers never make mistakes..." They have malpractice insurance, they can potentially defend their position if later sued, and most importantly they have the benefit of appeal to authority image/perception.
  - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
    All right, what if legal GPTs had to carry malpractice insurance? Either they give good advice, or the insurance rates will drive them out of business. I guess you'd have to have some way of knowing that the "malpractice insurance ID" that the GPT gave you at the start of the session was in fact valid, and with an insurance company that had the resources to actually cover if needed...
    - kulikalov 3y ago
      It's funny how any conversation ends with this question unanswered.
      - YetAnotherNick 3y ago
        Weirdly HN is full of anti AI people who just refuses to discuss the point that is being discussed and goes into all the same argument of wrong answer that they got some time. And then they present anecdotal evidence as truth, while there is no clear evidence if AI lawyer has more or less chance to be wrong than human. Surely AI could remember more and has been shown to clear bar examination.
        giantg2 3y ago
        "while there is no clear evidence if AI lawyer has more or less chance to be wrong than human." In the tests they are shown to be pretty close. The point I made wasn't about more mistakes, but about other factors influencing liability and how it would be worse for AI than humans at this point.
        YetAnotherNick 3y ago
        > at this point. This is the key point. Even if assume the AI won't get better, the liability and insurance premiums will likely become similar in very near future. There is a clear business opportunity that's there in insuring AI lawyer.
- naniwaduni 3y ago
  You'd require them to carry liability insurance (this is usually true for meat lawyers as well), which basically punts the problem up to "how good do they have to be to convince an insurer to offer them an appropriate amount of insurance at a price that leaves the service economically viable?"
  - kulikalov 3y ago
    Given orders of magnitude better cost efficiency, they will have plenty of funds to lure in any insurance firm in existence. And then replace insurance firms too.
engineer_22 3y ago
This is an area for further development and thought... If a LLM can pass the bar, and has a corpus of legal work instantly accessible, what prevents the deployment of the LLM (or other AI structure) to provide legitimate legal services? If the AI is providing legal services, how do we assign responsibility for the work (to the AI, or to its owner)? How to insure the work for Errors and Omissions? More practically, if willing to take on responsibility for yourself, is the use of AI going to save you money?
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  A human that screws up either too often or too spectacularly can be disbarred, even if they passed the bar. They can also be sued. If a GPT screws up, it could in theory be disbarred. But you can't sue it for damages, and you can't tell whether the same model under a different name is the next legal GPT you consult.
  - engineer_22 3y ago
    Agreed - which is why this is an area that needs more thought and development
- nprateem 3y ago
  Re your first point: it's not conscious. It has no understanding. It's perfectly possible the model could successfully answer an exam question but fail to reach the same or similar conclusion when it has to reason it's own way there based on information provided.
  - mvdtnz 3y ago
    Careful, there are plenty of True Believers on this website who really think that these "guess the next word" machines really do have consciousness and understanding.
    - lewhoo 3y ago
      I incline towards you on the subject but if you call it guessing you open yourself up to all sorts of rebuttals.
boplicity 3y ago
The obvious intermediate step is that you add an actual expert into the workflow, in terms of using LLMs for this purpose. Basically, add a "validate" step. So, you'd first chat with the LLM, create conclusions, then vet those conclusions with an expert specially trained to be skeptical of LLM generated content. I would be shocked if there aren't law agencies that aren't already doing something exactly like this.
- freejazz 3y ago
  Ah, so have the lawyer do everything the GPT did so the lawyer can be sure the GPT didn't fuck up.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

thallium205 3y ago

I wouldn't blindly trust what a lawyer says either so there's no difference there.

brk 3y ago
Sure, but you have a lot less personal risk following advice from a lawyer vs. advice from an LLM.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  When your GPT is wrong, you will be laughed out of the room and sanctioned. When your attorney is wrong, you get to point at the attorney and show a good faith effort was made. Hacks are fun, just keep in mind the domain you're operating in.
  - giantg2 3y ago
    "When your attorney is wrong, you get to point at the attorney and show a good faith effort was made." And possibly sue their insurance to correct their mistakes.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - Scoundreller 3y ago
      But you’ll have to find a lawyer that specializes in suing lawyers and their own malpractice plans. Maybe that’s where legal AI will find the most demand.
    - kulikalov 3y ago
      Can't a tech firm running a "legal gpt" have an insurance?
      - toomuchtodo 3y ago
        Do they have a license to practice law?

mannykannot 3y ago

I like the term "explorable vocabulary." I can see using LLMs to get an idea of what the relevant issues are before I approach a professional, without assuming that any particular claim in the model's responses is correct.

chaxor 3y ago

I don't understand how everyone keeps making this mistake over and over. They explicitly just said "in 5-10 years". So many people continually use arguments that revolve around 'I used it once and it wasn't the best and/or me things up', and imply that this will always be the case. There are many solutions already for knowledge editing, there are many solutions for improving performance, and there will very likely continue to be many improvements across the board for this. It took ~5 years from when people in the NLP literature noticed BERT and knew the powerful applications that were coming, until the public at large was aware of the developments via ChatGPT. It may take another 5 before the public sees the developments happening now in the literature hit something in a companies web UI.

mjr00 3y ago
on the other hand the rate of change isn't constant and there isn't a guarantee that the incredible progress in the past ~2 years in the LLM/diffusion/"AI" space will continue. As an example, take computer gaming graphics; compare the evolution between Wolfenstein 3D (1992) and Quake 3 Arena (1999), which is an absolute quantum leap. Now compare Resident Evil 7 (2017) and Alan Wake 2 (2023) and it's an improvement but nowhere near the same scale. We've already seen a fair bit of stagnation in the past year as ChatGPT gets progressively worse as the company is more focusing on neutering results to limit its exposure to legal liability.
- GaggiX 3y ago
  >ChatGPT gets progressively worse https://huggingface.co/spaces/lmsys/chatbot-arena-leaderboard https://huggingface.co/spaces/lmsys/chatbot-arena-leaderboar..., In blinded human comparisons, newer models perform better than older ones.
  - mvdtnz 3y ago
    That website doesn't load for me but anyone who uses ChatGPT semi regularly can see that it's getting steadily worse if you ever ask for anything that begins to border risque. It has even refused to provide me with things like bolt torque specs because of risk.

coffeebeqn 3y ago

I wonder could GPTs come up with legal loopholes. Like they are expected to come up with security vulnerabilities