The Impact of AI on Black Legal Careers: Are the Machines Taking Over?
The AI paradox dominates our screens. Press headlines laud AI’s revolutionary benefits while cautioning us on AI’s threat to humanity.
Since the launch of the ChatGPT test platform in November 2022, the chatbot meets search engine has recorded over 1.6 billion visits, propelling widespread access to powerful AI.
C-Suite Executives cannot resist the lure of tools that will automate tasks, enhance efficiency, reduce costs, and, in turn, increase revenue. Even the most conservative of Boardrooms are increasingly keen to introduce AI tools promising to revolutionise their business operations. The legal profession, refusing to be left behind, has discarded its reputation as digital Luddites. AI legal assistants for less specialised, routine legal tasks such as legal research, document review, and simple contract drafting have slowly made their way to our work desktops. An increasing trend, according to a recent report by Goldman Sachs, which predicts AI will displace up to 44% of roles in the legal profession. Lawyers are now asking the age-old question, often the reserve of the unskilled worker: will I lose my job to a machine?
What is AI?
The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is the age of automation, augmentation, and amplification, and AI is its wonder child. AI was conceptualised to enhance the computer’s ability to make decisions and complete tasks with minimal programming. According to IBM, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data generated daily need to be reviewed, analysed and comprehended by humans. Simply put, we are drowning in data. It is nigh on impossible to interpret and utilise this data explosion without the aid of AI.
Most of us have encountered AI daily over the last ten years, despite it only recently percolating to a topic of public interest. AI powers your recommended Netflix shows, chatbots that help you to engage with utility companies, and facial and voice recognition systems that allow you to access your mobile phone quickly. The introduction of generative AI tools through ChatGPT, DALL-E2, and Bing AI enable non-specialists to create sophisticated content quickly in natural human language.
We are now in the Fifth Industrial Revolution (5IR), which seeks to bring deep multi-level cooperation between people and machines through innovation, purpose and inclusivity.
AI Adoption in the Legal Profession
According to the infinite monkey theorem, an unlimited number of monkeys given a typewriter will eventually produce Shakespeare. Current iterations of generative AI (GPT-3 and GPT-4) can produce results indistinguishable from the human output, leaving many lawyers concerned about job security. In a recent report, Goldman Sachs predicted that one-quarter of all tasks performed in the US and Europe could be automated and replaced with the adoption of generative AI.
The continuous technological advancements and developments of language models are slowly replacing specific tasks done by lawyers, increasing their relevance within the legal sector. AI’s ability to expeditiously process and analyse substantial amounts of data is essential and advantageous in the fast-paced legal industry. The growing acceptance of AI within the legal sector promotes its adoption.
The legal industry comprises a relatively small number of occupations already highly exposed to AI automation. Researchers at Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania and New York University estimate that GPT-3 and GPT-4 technology will most affect legal services. For the first time, software applications can perform sophisticated research and drafting with the proficiency of a highly trained professional. Law firms and legal departments seek AI’s efficiency benefits through reduced labour costs and increased productivity. The Law Society foretells the deskilling of the legal profession as AI takes over. It further warns that by 2030 people will have a free lawyer at their disposal, similar to Siri’.
According to McKinsey’s 2022 AI report, the adoption of AI has more than doubled in the last five years. In 2017, 20 % of the respondents’ organisations reportedly adopted AI in their business operations; however, by 2022, the adoption of AI use increased to 50 %. Despite the increase, the adoption of AI in the legal industry is relatively low. Professional services firms cite cost as a driver for this delay. Development, implementation, user adoption, continuous maintenance, and training of AI systems are costly, resulting in most organisations delaying the adoption of AI.
Change is inevitable, and the increased automation in the legal sector will, without a doubt, outpace certain legal skills. But disruption does not only bring chaos. As in previous industrial revolutions, disruption has brought new employment and business opportunities within the innovated sector.
Regulating AI to Protect Humanity
There is no success without risk, which rings particularly true for AI. AI is largely unregulated and currently presents a myriad of unresolved concerns: confidentiality, privacy, security, authenticity, discrimination, bias, and an existential threat to humanity. The harmful effects of AI are so severe that those who have spent years developing it from cognitive computing to current generative AI systems called for a six-month pause on developing AI systems more powerful than GPT-4. In March 2023, tech leaders, who more often decry the burdens of regulation, issued an open letter calling for governments to enact AI regulatory frameworks. EU lawmakers supported this call in April 2023 by appealing to world leaders to urgently give significant political attention to the rapid evolution of powerful AI. They stated, “Without appropriate safeguards, these [AI] risks are likely to result in substantial harm, in both the near- and longer-term, to individuals, communities, and society”. The EU continues to lead in this area with its Artificial Intelligence Act (still in negotiation) serving as a blueprint for the rest of the world to follow in regulating AI.
According to a Deloitte survey, 76% of respondents reportedly trust AI systems in making decisions, and 72% believe AI to be a valuable addition to their organisation. This trust by individuals and corporate customers is misplaced. While we await the development of appropriate frameworks, legal minds will be called upon to create and advise on the risk frameworks to ensure AI’s safe development, implementation, and adoption.
Legal Skills for Trusted AI
AI as a workplace disruptor is an excellent opportunity for lawyers to diversify their skills and discover new opportunities for employability. “That’s all good, but how do I protect my career?” I hear you ask.
I draw on the guidance of my secondary school IT Teacher. “Computers are [fick]; they only do what you tell ’em to do”, he would boom in his earthy South London accent. These sophisticated AI systems rely on the data humans have coded into them. With a lack of diversity in STEM, the AI we use today has been developed from data sourced illegally by today’s standards and loaded with inherent algorithmic bias. Such bias is rampant in AI’s automated decision-making, introducing new and amplified forms of discrimination as AI continues to learn from itself. I prefer to describe this as “garbage in, dirtier garbage out”. As AI continues to take root in our society, individuals and companies will require the assistance of lawyers to manage the intended and unintended discriminatory effects of AI. We expect AI’s use in our public and private services to increase dramatically in education, healthcare, law enforcement, transportation, banking and finance, and e-commerce. This extended use is ripe for legal challenges. For example, in 2021, believing the algorithm contained inherent bias, Uber riders in the Netherlands sought disclosure of the algorithm Uber uses to terminate riders. The court denied the request and found that the algorithm constituted Uber’s commercially sensitive information. On appeal, the court held Uber could not rely on trade secrets exemptions to data privacy laws. The court ordered Uber to explain how it uses automated decision-making and profiling to set dynamic pricing and ride allocation.
5IR: Humans and Machines Rise Together
The continued adoption of AI to support professional services will change how we work in the legal profession. As AI adoption intensifies, the legal profession is set to transform and potentially give birth to new career opportunities needed to match these technological advances. Will AI take your job? Probably not, but it will certainly change it.
The machines will rise, but they cannot rise alone. According to the World Economic Forum, “5IR technologies are expected to have a profound impact on the way we live and work, but their development must be guided by a human-centred approach to ensure that their benefits are widely shared and that their negative impacts are minimised.” AI and its future iterations rely on the symbiotic relationship between people and machines. As black lawyers, we must stay ahead of the curve to ensure we are well-positioned to upskill and seize new opportunities in our extended practice areas. Having successfully navigated systemic discrimination, black lawyers may be more aware of the diversity, equity, and inclusion issues that society must resolve for machines and people to work together in this 5IR.