Artificial intelligence (AI) is heavily in the news these days, as well as in this current installment of the Business Law Update. As with any new business or technologies, there are myriad legal questions surrounding AI. We certainly will be covering these developments in future publications and events.
What is AI? I have been reminded lately of a comment attributed to Gandhi. When asked for his opinion about Western Civilization, he responded that he thought it “would be a good idea.” That tongue-in-cheek answer perhaps also applies to AI. Artificial “intelligence” likewise would seem to be a good idea. In reality, AI, at least currently, is a technology for using computers to process, sort and reassemble information generated by people – human intelligence – and made available in a digitized information network. The “intelligence” of the output of an AI system therefore depends on the information created and placed on the network in the first place, by human beings, and on the operations of the algorithms, created by human beings, embedded in AI systems. In the early days of the computer revolution, this sometimes was referred to as “GIGO” – garbage in, garbage out! So, as the ancients well knew, there still is nothing new under the sun.
Beyond GIGO, the algorithms used by the AI systems have a tendency to process information in unexpected and, frankly, sometimes “unintelligent” ways. In the world of law firms, AI systems are being used to find and summarize court decisions that are published online covering particular legal issues. We have seen some bizarre results from the subset of AI systems called “generative AI” (ChatGPT is an example of generative AI), which are designed to write (“generate”) content using a limited set of sources. For example, these systems have reportedly cited court decisions that do not exist! Some have referred to this as the “hallucination” phenomenon in AI.
Thompson Hine is committed to innovation. We are keeping up to date on this technology and taking from it the valuable, and reliable, elements that can enhance our practices and work for our clients. We have built AI-powered tools for limited purposes as a way of enhancing the speed, efficiency and cost-effectiveness of our services. For example, we have created award-winning systems to aid our dealmakers and litigators in the process of budgeting and estimating the cost of legal matters, and allocating work efficiently among our associates, partners, and other professionals.
We will continue to monitor developments in the more advanced AI applications, such as research and document generation, and apply them thoughtfully in our work for our trusted clients. And no – this column was not written by a generative AI chatbot. I take full responsibility. Unless, of course, I am hallucinating …
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