One of the problems with generative AI is that there are so many possibilities and inconclusive data. How often does it hallucinate? Each system claims certain odds, but who is certain? I’ve been mulling over a few hypotheticals where AI has a defined failure rate and the harms are clear and predictable. Of course there are dangers to generative AI beyond the hallucination rate, but I’d like to ignore all of that to puzzle over three variables: time, harm, and benefit.

Assume there are 100 private-school students and twice a year they write a term paper independently. This year a . . . [more]

The hype around generative AI and legal research continues, and it seems everyone has an opinion. There are concerns about use of AI in practice, but there is less clarity about how to approach finding sustainable solutions. It is however apparent that we need to consider the risks associated with using these systems, especially those that were not designed for certain uses. This is particularly important because general purpose tools like ChatGPT are likely to continue to be developed, and, given the complexity of navigating legal information, if they can be used with law they will be.

The first solution . . . [more]

Barely six months after an explosive Goldman Sachs report predicted massive economic and employment upheaval from large language models and generative AI, the Chief Information Officer of that same company reports that his company has no actual generative AI use cases in production. Both claims, much like the title of this article, are true, false, misleading and helpful all at once. ChatGPT, Dall-E, MidJourney and the slew of open source models that followed have undoubtedly and irrevocably changed our expectations of what we can achieve through technology, meanwhile our collective ability to change behaviours has both reinforced and belied . . . [more]

Six months ago, I wrote a column about ChatGPT and other tools using large language models (“LLMs”). My aim there was to introduce this technology to readers and briefly outline intersections with legal ethics and access to justice issues. This column provides an update on this topic, including a deeper dive into legal ethics considerations.

I. What are we talking about?

My previous column included a basic overview about how ChatGPT and other tools built on LLMs work. I reshare the following two quotes as a starting point here:

A basic explanation of how ChatGPT works:

“It is trained on

Cyberinsurance Sticker Shock

We’ve been watching cyberinsurance get more and more expensive over the years. Perhaps in the wake of the extraordinary number of data breaches in 2023 (both small and large organizations), it is no wonder that a recent survey showed that respondents report an increase in insurance rates of 50-100% upon initial application or renewal.

Ouch. You must also prepare yourself for an ordeal of six months or more to obtain or renew cyberinsurance.

The August 2023 report from Delinea caused a lot of eyebrows to go up. Almost 80% of survey respondents have used their cyber insurance . . . [more]

When Everyone in the Legal World Knows Your Name

We are sure that New York lawyers Steven Schwartz and Peter LoDuca are not especially happy to have become famous by way of failing to vet the accuracy of ChatGPT which made up cases and citations that become a part of the brief they submitted to New York Federal Judge P. Kevin Castel.

The lawyers’ client, Roberto Mata, sued the airline Avianca, claiming he was injured when a metal serving cart struck his knee on a flight to Kennedy International Airport in 2019.

When Avianca requested that Judge Castel toss out . . . [more]

You don’t have to go back far in history to read about the many misbehaviors of law firm employees. Whether the media stories concern the alleged actions of partners, associates or support personnel, there is plenty of fodder to make law firms rethink its hiring practices and firm culture to keep the firm name out of the headlines. Unfortunately, they aren’t always successful in achieving that goal. While we don’t have first-hand knowledge of the details, there are several examples of alleged misbehavior that we can learn from.

Data theft

One major risk for law firms is the theft of . . . [more]

 Zero Trust Architecture simplified

Lawyers have a “deer in the headlights” look whenever we talk about Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) – and we do understand that look. ZTA is complicated and often causes your eyes to glaze over about two minutes after we bring ZTA into the conversation.

Let’s keep it as simple as a complicated subject can be.

Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) is not a product you can buy in a store or online. It is a security model presented in 2003 by the Jericho Forum, although the term “zero trust” dates back to 1994. The zero trust model . . . [more]

You can’t swing a dead cat around practice management and legal tech circles without hitting somebody talking about ChatGPT. And I know a lot of lawyers have developed a bone-deep fatigue of hearing about all things AI over the past few weeks.

I’ll admit, I am really interested in (and a bit worried about) what feels like the beginning of a sharp upward trajectory of AI’s presence in the professional lives of lawyers. Growing up watching sci fi movies in the 80s left me with a healthy concern of what will happen eventually with AI, but I also don’t think . . . [more]

Law is a unique and important dataset: to a large degree it is a record of governance. It also tends to be conservative, so people can know what is likely to happen in the future based on what has happened in the past. Structurally, it has elements in common with other large text-based collections, such as aggregations of literary works. However, socially it has more in common with other high stakes bodies of information like medical research, with concerns like privacy and direct impact on people’s lives being necessary considerations. These attributes combine to make law as data a strange . . . [more]

The Authors Are Detox Veterans

While that heading might seem a little silly, it is absolutely true that fighting digital addiction is a true battle. It took us a long time to realize how deep our addiction was – and winning our battle against the “drug-like” compulsion to be online was not an easy victory.

So . . . if you know you need a digital detox, we hope that what follows with be useful to you. And take heart, there are many of us who have now graduated from addiction to a MUCH healthier way of living!

The History

The end of the year is a time when we frequently think about what has happened in the past and what will come in the future. One of the things that is often considered in this context is technological changes. With the benefit of hindsight it is easy to point to organizations that missed opportunities to adopt technologies at optimal times and worry that we are making similar mistakes in our own organizations.

The decisions associated with technology adoption are complex and involve many considerations. At the same time, they are necessarily made in the absence of perfect information. After . . . [more]