It seems like it would be hard to detect if smart lawyers are using AI since (I think) lawyers’ work is easier to verify than it is to generate. If a smart lawyer has an AI do research and come up with an argument, and then they verify that all of the citations make sense, the only way to know they’re using AI is that they worked anomalously quickly.
I agree with your point. But what I think is interesting about legal work is not that they could/couldn’t be automated or that AI usage could be detected. I think that lawyers will see the job automation coming and take legal action to protect themselves such that AI is not legally allowed to be used for some key legal tasks, such that they ~all keep their jobs
The reason I’m skeptical of this is that it doesn’t seem like you could enforce a law against using AI for legal research. As much as lawyers might want to ban this as a group, individually they all have strong incentives to use AI anyway and just not admit it.
Although this assumes doing research and coming up with arguments is most of their job. It could be that most of their job is harder to do secretly, like meeting with clients and making arguments in court.
It seems like it would be hard to detect if smart lawyers are using AI since (I think) lawyers’ work is easier to verify than it is to generate. If a smart lawyer has an AI do research and come up with an argument, and then they verify that all of the citations make sense, the only way to know they’re using AI is that they worked anomalously quickly.
I agree with your point. But what I think is interesting about legal work is not that they could/couldn’t be automated or that AI usage could be detected. I think that lawyers will see the job automation coming and take legal action to protect themselves such that AI is not legally allowed to be used for some key legal tasks, such that they ~all keep their jobs
The reason I’m skeptical of this is that it doesn’t seem like you could enforce a law against using AI for legal research. As much as lawyers might want to ban this as a group, individually they all have strong incentives to use AI anyway and just not admit it.
Although this assumes doing research and coming up with arguments is most of their job. It could be that most of their job is harder to do secretly, like meeting with clients and making arguments in court.