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The Singularity is Near –Just Not Here Yet
ChatGPT, Gemini, Jasper, the chatbot list goes on, and will likely be as long as the list of available bitcoins. However, while using artificial intelligence to draft your legal agreements is a bit better than completely DIY-ing it, it’s still a version of a legal DIY, and doing it yourself is dangerous (even with some robotic assistance).
In this edition we talk about leveraging technology to your advantage, the pros and cons of AI, and situations where a human touch is still preferable (that is, until we all have microchips in our brains and humanity itself becomes “powered by ChatGPT”).
You Didn’t Go to Law School and Neither Did Your Chatbot (Yet)
There’s a lot that AI can do. It can show you a creepy, human version of your cat. It can even give you a detailed grocery list organized by aisle in the grocery store. But drafting a detailed, nuanced, and tailored legal agreement? Not so fast (well…technically, it can do it instantly just not very well). Several chatbots out there may have passed the Turing test, but AI is a tool, and not a crutch. It’s a chatbot, not a lawbot. It may draft up something that’s “pretty good”, but it will not prepare a robust agreement that contemplates the nuances of your business and the transaction itself.
You may think your chatbot knows you really well, but it doesn’t know your business well, and frankly, we don’t think it should. A chatbot is limited in its own industry knowledge, and although it’s fed massive amounts of information 24/7, we still like to think that your business is special, and unique. A broad brush won’t really work out long-term. While every contract will have certain boilerplate language, the tweaks and customizations that reflect your individual needs will get lost in the shuffle. For example, it may spit out a pretty good indemnification provision, but will it balance the related language concerning limitation of liability, insurance maximums, and the like? As we have said time and time again, contract drafting and negations is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Feel free to use AI as a starting point, but make sure you expand that scope in a way that reflects the bigger picture, and the implications beyond the confines of the boilerplate agreement it prepared.
Don’t get us wrong, we are certainly pro-AI. AI is the future, and we are embracing it (ask us how – we love this topic!), just with some necessary guardrails.
It’s Not all Bad – Positive Ways to Leverage Technology
The best use of AI is to develop ideas, coupled with human oversight in reviewing those ideas. Further, AI is helpful to make sense of what the other side is asking for, or weird (and problematic) language in an agreement that may have been presented to you. You can also use it to dump potential issues and have it spit out how you want to express it, especially if you’re talking with your attorneys and don’t really know how to best express your concerns (that your attorney then translates into your agreements themselves). Remember – a tool, not a crutch. Just like calculators made calculating instantaneous vs. using an abacus, a calculator can only take the user’s inputs so far.
That being said, I for one, welcome our new robot overlords, but as always, if you’ve got questions, you know we’ve got answers!
~ The W + K Team
ABOUT WEINSTEIN + KLEIN P.C.
Established in 2019, Weinstein + Klein is a boutique law firm focused on labor and employment law, business matters, and litigation. W + K works with businesses, individuals, and entrepreneurs to protect their legal interests. In addition to advising clients on employment matters and working with businesses to minimize their risk of litigation, we advise small businesses and start-ups on various business law matters.