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The following was written by an artificial intelligence (AI) model called ChatGPT:

“As the legal profession continues to evolve, lawyers are constantly looking for new ways to improve their practice and provide better service to their clients. One technology that has recently gained traction in the legal field is ChatGPT, a powerful natural language processing tool that can help lawyers automate certain tasks and improve their productivity.

“ChatGPT is a chatbot that uses artificial intelligence to understand and respond to natural language inputs. This allows lawyers to interact with the chatbot in a conversational manner, just as they would with a human assistant. The chatbot can answer questions, provide information, and even complete simple tasks such as scheduling appointments or drafting documents.

“One of the biggest benefits of using ChatGPT is that it can save lawyers a significant amount of time. By automating routine tasks, lawyers can focus on more important work and increase their efficiency. This can be especially useful for solo practitioners or small law firms that may not have the resources to hire additional staff.

“In addition to saving time, ChatGPT can also improve the accuracy of legal work. The chatbot uses advanced algorithms to process natural language inputs and provide reliable information. This can help lawyers avoid mistakes and ensure that they are providing their clients with the best possible service.

“Another benefit of ChatGPT is that it can be accessed from anywhere, at any time. This makes it an ideal tool for lawyers who need to work remotely or who need to be available to their clients outside of normal business hours.

“Overall, ChatGPT is a powerful tool that can help lawyers improve their practice and provide better service to their clients. By automating routine tasks and providing reliable information, ChatGPT can save lawyers time, improve the accuracy of their work, and make their practice more efficient and effective.”

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The excerpt above was written by ChatGPT with no edits from me at all. As the AI model ChatGPT has been gaining traction quickly, I decided to look into it. So, I typed into the app “write a blog about lawyers using ChatGPT”, and it generated the sub-300-word blog that you see above.

Not bad, right?

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT makes use of GPT-3 meaning Generative Pre-trained Transformer, version 3), a machine-learning language model that’s consumed enough text to be able to interpret and output text in a way that appears human-like. It isn’t necessarily ‘intelligence’; it just knows how to predict the next word in a sentence.

AI is becoming more prominent in the legal profession and will continue to grow in its usage and implementation in the years to come. Anything that can make our lives easier will always be a winner for us!

Other ways that it can be used by lawyers is in the form of chatbots on firms’ and companies’ landing pages, automated diary and appointment management, document generation, fraud prevention and anti-money laundering, and forecasting outcomes of contentious matters.

For content creators, apps such as this can be a huge help. Just by giving the app a prompt or a topic based on what we’re writing about, it then takes that prompt to create an almost human response, which we can then expand. It almost feels like we’re delegating to a very knowledgeable and well-read junior!

Curious about AI? Read this LCN Says on the impact of using AI in the boardroom.

Limitations and drawbacks

We know that an AI app, like a chatbot, is only as intelligent and capable as the people who programmed it in the first place. This extends to the questions that it can recognise and the style of language of its responses.

For instance, the start of this article was written completely by ChatGPT with no edits from me. There are small grammatical imperfections, along with opportunities to reduce the number of words used and still achieve what was intended. Basically, because it isn’t human and can’t be human, it can’t speak like a human, nor can it pick up on little nuances in language that people use when communicating. So human input is still necessary and we’re not yet at the stage where machines can do our entire job!

After testing ChatGPT again with a similar topic, I noticed that several phrases and sentences repeated almost word for word, with the only differences resulting from a discrepancy in subject matter. If humans wrote with this lack of variety, it would be picked up quickly by readers.

AI apps like ChatGPT may have banks of phrases and sentences programmed into them. This makes it easier for them to respond to a question if they have a pre-programmed phrase that can be used when it recognises a similar prompt. But the variety of responses will likely be limited in a way that we aren’t because of our command over language and the variety of nuances and interpretations that we can all make.

Want to know more about how legal technology can aid the legal profession? Check out this LCN Says.

Copyright concerns

We need to ask questions about where content is being pulled from so that ChatGPT can be programmed accordingly. We know that copyright exists as soon as a piece of work is created. In order to do its job, does ChatGPT need to be programmed with pre-existing content in mind, so that it can create appropriate results for legal content creators?

Would this mean programming it with other people’s articles in mind? And what other content does it pull from? Who does that content belong to? How recent was it – older or younger than 70 years? These are all valid questions that would need to be considered, especially when creators rely on apps like this to assist us with our role. 

All in all, AI and apps like this appear to be a helpful addition to a content creator’s arsenal, but they can’t replace us just yet. Readers still want to hear from people because we offer our opinions, thoughts and various interpretations. We can certainly all learn from this diversity of thought.