Highs and lows of today’s AI technology

Last week I once again had the opportunity to attend the Pennsylvania Bar Institute’s Elder Law Institute’s two-day continuing legal education program in Harrisburg. Having attended this forum for about 20 years, I saw it as an opportunity to catch up with old friends, senior attorneys from around the state, and trusted sources of information.

On Thursday, one program in particular about Artificial Intelligence (commonly referred to as AI) proved to be fascinating, amazing, disorienting, challenging and disconcerting. It wasn’t my first encounter with the technology, but it brought to my attention uses I hadn’t considered before. AI has been described as “an area of ​​computer science that enables computers to perform tasks that are typically associated with human intelligence, such as problem solving, learning, and reasoning. AI can enable computers to perceive, interact with their environment and even be creative.” (https://www.intel.com.)

One of my last experiences with introducing AI was at a forum I personally organized and attended sponsored by the National Elder Law Foundation (NELF) in Chicago last summer. The speaker described the differences between AI in general and generative AI and highlighted some issues that have already been experienced by lawyers, particularly in relation to legal positions taken during litigation.

AI started out by getting information, but then expanded into “generative” AI that could produce, as far as lawyers are concerned, briefs and arguments, possibly out of thin air. This has obvious risks. The dangers and uses of generative AI, the kind that can produce—one might even say fabricate—jurisprudence to support a position are obvious, and lawyers have been chastised for casually relying on its validity.

The fact that generative AI could identify and describe cases that never existed has led to court decisions and regulations that severely limit and/or prohibit the use of artificial intelligence as a basis for decision-making in some cases. On the other hand, the uses of AI, especially for preliminary research and for routine and repetitive tasks, can be mind-boggling.

Last Thursday at the Elder Law Institute, I watched as the speaker, a lawyer himself but very tech-savvy, demonstrated how AI could speak commands into the system and generate correspondence, entire briefs in support of a position, and make changes. by emphasis and point of view. It was not meant to replace human understanding.

Let’s say a lawyer wanted to first research using standard AI and then use the search results, for example, to write a brief incorporating the information obtained. The speaker noted that the end product, while impressive, would still only be comparable to giving the job to an assistant—someone who isn’t necessarily all that knowledgeable.

He strongly cautioned that AI should be used as if it were an inexperienced “assistant”, with a task that is then left to you as a lawyer to critique and modify based on prior knowledge and understanding of existing case law relevant. After all, there is a reason for human input!

Here are some examples we looked at.

The AI ​​was able to identify, locate and print the relevant statutes in your field. It could then “analyze” based on the available information. The lawyer, based on experience, might realize that it is more than that.

To give examples of how the technology could be used, the speaker requested topics which he then discussed in the online system. Some of the ideas proposed were as simple as routine correspondence, such as “write a letter to Client x and indicate that a response to you is imperative soon.” He then amended the request to request that the letter adopt a more conciliatory or demanding tone. Requests were made for statutes which his version of AI then produced. He then requested rewrites in other languages, such as Russian, which he immediately printed.

The speaker also asked simple questions like “why is the elder law important?” He then asked the program to reformulate its response to reflect the reader’s age or sophistication, such as “explain why the elder law is important, but assume the reader is an elementary school student.” The program immediately generated a response. It was fascinating and provides a lot of food for thought on how to use this technology now and in the future.

Janet Colliton, Esq. is a Certified Elder Law Attorney (CELA) by the National Elder Law Foundation and limits his practice to elder law, retirement, life care, special needs and estate planning and administration, with offices at 790 East Market St., Suite 250, West Chester , 610-436-6674, [email protected]. She is a member of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys and the Pennsylvania Association of Elder Law Attorneys and, with Jeffrey Jones, CSA, co-founded Life Transition Services LLC, a service for families with long-term care needs.