No AI Policy
At Lester Dominic Solicitors, we strictly adopt a no Artificial Intelligence (AI) policy. This means that clients can expect all the work, including all written correspondences, created by a human and not generated by AI.
At Lester Dominic Solicitors, we understand the importance of embracing technology, and we have been doing so since the firm was established in 2004. That said, it does not mean that all technology that has been made available should be blindly adopted. We only adopt technology which would assist us in providing a better and more personal service to our clients and unfortunately AI, at least at this stage, cannot do this.
Below are the reasons we believe that AI could not assist us in providing an expectational service.
AI cannot think
AI is artificial, whether it is intelligent is debatable. This is because AI cannot think despite how AI products have been promoted and marketed to the public.
Thinking is reflexive in nature. That is when you are thinking about “something” you are aware that you are thinking about “something”. A human can also think about what they are thinking and take a critical approach to the “something”, which they are thinking about and that leads to an internal dialogue in their mind about that “something”. However, AI cannot do this.
AI is nothing more than a machine gathering enough data which allows it to predict a likely outcome. It can imitate a natural human and appear to be thinking, however, collecting data is not thinking. Therefore, the most that AI can do is to provide a superficial and surface level information, but without any depth.
When it comes to law, knowledge and data alone are not enough. It requires application of the knowledge and often a creative way of presenting facts which requires understanding of nuances and deep thinking. This is the reason why laws evolve constantly and should not be treated as a black and white process.
AI is designed to please
The other issue is that AI has been designed to please the user. AI always responds to your prompt no matter what. It even creates fake citations and case laws which are completely fictional. This is often called “hallucination”. AI hallucination poses a serious problem for the users, including legally trained lawyers, because law requires accuracy and real facts, but information provided by AI is not reliable which, far from helping the users, creates confusion, misleading and fictional information which is detrimental to the users.
What clients need is not fictional material in order to please them but accurate and correct material which enables them to make their own assessment.
Confidentiality
Another issue with AI is data protection. Some AIs are on open platform and currently there isn’t any regulations to govern the ownership of the data and how data is being stored by these AI companies.
One of the main concerns is that most people overlook their duty of confidentiality with using AI. If a document is being analysed by AI with confidential information, the act of actually putting it into AI would no doubt put the user at risk of a breach of confidentiality.
Lack of human sentiment
We believe AI writing, no matter how eloquent it might appear to be, lacks human emotions, feelings and sentiments. In this IT age, it is often overlooked that our job as a lawyer is to communicate effectively with others.
Human beings have their own unique thoughts, feelings and emotions, as well as empathy which AI could never replicate because AI cannot think and has no feelings or emotions. Very few would appreciate a standard robotic response especially when communicating something which is important and personal to our clients. Human emotions play a vital role in decision making concerning ethics and justice. No matter how advanced a machine can become, a machine can never replicate human emotions.
We will of course continue to assess our policy as technology advances.
