Have you ever seen the television shows Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul or Boston Legal?
As an executive, you have a bunch of lawyer friends, and you know that you can call one of them for your legal challenges or opportunities. It could be a merger and acquisition deal or a financing agreement with a bank or financial institution. Either way, you know who to call. These lawyers, naturally, are not a cheap or small investment, and no one would ever think their jobs were under attack.
But, there is a new kind of threat to these elite white-collar lawyers: artificial intelligence.
AI’s Role In The Law
A recent study by LawGeex pitted their artificial intelligence (AI) system against 20 human lawyers to test the system’s efficiency in reviewing contracts. LawGeex’s system and the lawyers were asked to review the risks in five nondisclosure agreements. The humans had four hours to study the contracts. The lawyers took an average of 92 minutes to complete their review of the five NDAs and arrived at an accuracy level of 85%. The AI system took a full 26 seconds to complete its review of all 5 NDAs and achieved an accuracy level of 94%.
In yet another bizarre turn of events, a court in New Hampshire ordered Amazon to turn over all of the recordings compiled by an Alexa device that police thought “witnessed” a double homicide. What if the alleged murderer used Google Maps to arrive at the victims’ home and Alexa listened to the actual event? Who will the attorneys question? Are we on the road to a society where Siri and Alexa are interrogated by other AI systems — systems that can compose thousands of questions in a second for Alexa or Siri to answer in a nanosecond?
What will happen when AI systems installed in two different cars report an accident automatically? If they don’t agree with each other in regard to who is at fault, would a jury summon both sides to the stand, and will the resulting legal battle be fought by technology?
