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Are people irrational to start law degrees in 2024? New research shows AI can do many of the tasks of junior lawyers and other legal staff at less than 1% the cost of their wages. (arxiv.org)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Legal research and writing is only one aspect of practicing law. How will your chat gpt associate appear in court? Make oral arguments? Stand up to object on the record? Obtain a bar ID number? Pass the bar? Counsel clients? Console a distraught client who has just lost their child, or home, or personal liberty? Search for new business? AI can do a lot of things but being a lawyer is much more than stringing sentences together with some Latin words thrown in.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Pass the bar?

https://www.reuters.com/technology/bar-exam-score-shows-ai-can-keep-up-with-human-lawyers-researchers-say-2023-03-15/

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Yeah, OP clearly hasn't used LLMs very much, they can absolutely produce the text necessary for those things. Not reliably right now, mind you - people have been fined for citing made-up case law because ChatGPT went rogue - but it can do a great first pass.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Passing the test is not the same as being admitted to practice law. Can you give me the bar ID number of a non-human AI who has sat for and passed the bar in a US state? Last time I took it it required having a face, a social security number and a JD.

I think passing a standardized test and legal research and writing are almost certainly things that AI can do better than any human being. But that's a very different statement than saying that people should stop going to law school because AI is being developed. I know if I was facing jail time I would prefer to have a lawyer with biological neurons.

I think less people should go to law school because being a lawyer sucks ass, but that's a different discussion.