2024 UnboxingGenerativeAIfortheLegal
- (Contini, 2024) ⇒ Francesco Contini. (2024). “Unboxing Generative AI for the Legal Professions: Functions, Impacts and Governance.” In: International Journal for Court Administration, 15(2). doi:10.36745/ijca.604
Subject Headings: Regulation of GenAI, Judicial Decision-Making , GenAI User Accountability, Economic Impacts of GenAI, Legal Domain Customization.
Notes
- Emergence of GenAI in Legal Tech: The paper discusses how generative AI (GenAI) has rapidly integrated into the legal profession, offering functions like contract analysis, legal research, and document synthesis, which were traditionally performed by human professionals.
- Impact on Judicial Process and Legal Activities: The paper explores how GenAI is transforming the activity systems of judges, lawyers, and litigants by automating tasks that were previously manual, raising questions about the implications for fair trials and the administration of justice.
- Challenges with Accuracy and Hallucinations: The paper highlights concerns about the accuracy of GenAI outputs, noting that these systems can generate plausible but incorrect or "hallucinated" information, which could mislead legal professionals if not properly verified.
- Economic Implications of GenAI: The paper anticipates a shift in resources within the legal sector due to GenAI, where cost savings from reduced staffing might be offset by increased expenses related to licensing and using advanced AI tools.
- Technological and Contractual Developments in GenAI: The paper discusses recent advancements in GenAI technology, such as APIs and customizable models, which allow for more accurate and domain-specific applications in the legal field, reducing the risk of irrelevant or hallucinated outputs.
- Guidelines for Responsible AI Use: The paper examines various guidelines issued by legal and judicial bodies that emphasize understanding GenAI's limitations, maintaining data confidentiality, and ensuring human oversight of AI-generated outputs.
- Regulatory and Ethical Considerations in GenAI: The paper stresses the importance of regulation and self-regulation, proposing that certification and transparency about GenAI usage are necessary to maintain trust in the legal system and protect against misuse.
- User Accountability in GenAI: The paper argues that the responsibility for ensuring the correctness and reliability of GenAI outputs ultimately lies with the users—lawyers, judges, and other legal professionals—who must critically assess the AI's suggestions before use.
- Potential for Enhanced Access to Justice through GenAI: The paper posits that GenAI has the potential to make legal services more accessible by lowering costs and providing tools that allow non-professionals to engage with the legal system more effectively.
- Concerns over Data Privacy: The paper raises significant concerns about data privacy, especially with free or basic versions of GenAI tools, which may collect and use data without adequate safeguards, posing risks to confidential legal information.
- The Future of Legal Tech Governance in the Context of GenAI: The paper calls for a balanced approach to governing the use of GenAI in legal contexts, emphasizing the need for ongoing human empowerment, careful regulation, and ethical guidelines to prevent the technology from undermining the principles of justice.
Cited By
Quotes
Abstract
The paper delves into the early impacts of Generative AI (GenAI) on the legal sector, its implications for the activity systems of judges, lawyers, and litigants, and the values underpinning the administration of justice. Literature analysis is complemented by a survey of the functions GenAI systems offer to law firms, judges, and citizens, as well as by assessing the guidelines for the proper use of such technologies in the legal domain. The paper underscores how GenAI is becoming pervasive through specialized applications and its integration into everyday office tools. Such a rapid proliferation of applications has revealed that several of the principles suggested by the guidelines are inadequate in managing GenAI usage and assigning responsibilities to the providers. Users are ultimately responsible and must fully understand and accept the consequences of their use. Therefore, when interacting with GenAI in the legal business, comprehending the systems’ technological features and functioning, including their limitations and potential pitfalls, is the primary safeguard now available. The finding underscores the need for human empowerment to prevent an uncontrolled proliferation of GenAI in the legal business, thereby stressing the importance of human oversight in using AI.
References
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| Author | volume | Date Value | title | type | journal | titleUrl | doi | note | year | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 UnboxingGenerativeAIfortheLegal | Francesco Contini | Unboxing Generative AI for the Legal Professions: Functions, Impacts and Governance | 10.36745/ijca.604 | 2024 |