“Deus ex machina,” or “god out of the machine,” was a stage play convention developed in Ancient Greece, whereby characters were extracted from impossible situations via some unexpected contrivance.
Effectively, actors playing gods would be brought onto the stage, from above or below, to “save” the hero.
Sometimes, artificial intelligence is presented this way.
It’s the salve for everything that ails modern humans — we’ll finally get our time back, and we won’t even have to think anymore!
Now, for all the good things that AI delivers to law firm business owners, there remain significant caution points, of which attorneys should be acutely aware.
Joyce Brafford of ProfitSolv is back again on the NonEventcast — as co-host of this set of special episodes — to talk with us about the intersection of legal ethics and AI. We discuss recent ethical guidance on the use of AI by attorneys and how that plays out in everyday law practice.
This is the sixth episode in a special podcast series, with a new episode coming each month, hosted in conjunction with our partner, ProfitSolv. This episode is sponsored by TimeSolv.
In this episode, the co-hosts start, as always, by describing a new pair of imaginary beasts in “Cryptid Corner.”
After that, the pair go waaaaay back — to begin a discussion on the (actually lengthy) history of AI … which has maybe been around longer than you think (10:39).
Next, we run down various types of AI, because there’s more out there than the generative tools (like ChatGPT) that most folks are aware of (12:07).
Following that discussion, Joyce addresses some of the limitations of AI usage in the legal space and the danger of implicit bias within the systems themselves (14:48).
There is also a recent joint ethics opinion on AI in legal, from the Pennsylvania & Philadelphia Bar Associations, which Joyce offered up the skinny on (19:17). Then, we dove into some case law around AI “hallucinations,” when these tools basically make up legal cases. (28:32)
Following that, we covered specific strategies for vetting legal tech products that offer AI features (33:26).
Last, but certainly not least — Joyce covered some of the cool stuff that ProfitSolv companies are doing with respect to the addition of AI product features (36:20).
If you’re thinking that AI would be a really useful thing to implement in your law practice but are worried about staying on the right side of the legal ethics question — listen to this special edition of the Non-Eventcast podcast to figure out how to color inside the lines.
Jared Correia, a consultant and legal technology expert, is the host of the Non-Eventcast, the featured podcast of the Above the Law Non-Event for Tech-Perplexed Lawyers.
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