At Lester Dominic Solicitors, we strictly adopt a no Artificial Intelligence (AI) policy. This means clients can expect all work, including written correspondence, to be created by a human, 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 made available should be blindly adopted. We only adopt technology that assists us in providing a better, more personal service to our clients, and unfortunately, AI, at least at this stage, cannot do so.
Below are the reasons we believe AI cannot assist us in providing exceptional 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 reflect on what they are thinking and take a critical approach to the “something” they are considering, which leads to an internal dialogue about that “something”. However, AI cannot do this.
AI is nothing more than a machine gathering enough data 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 AI can do is provide superficial, surface-level information, without any depth.
When it comes to law, knowledge and data alone are not enough. It requires applying knowledge and often a creative way of presenting facts, which requires understanding 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 users, including lawyers, because the law requires accuracy and real facts, but information provided by AI is not reliable, creating confusion, misleading, and fictional information that is detrimental to users.
What clients need is not fictional material to please them, but accurate, correct material that enables them to make their own assessment.
Confidentiality
Another issue with AI is data protection. Some AIs run on open platforms, and currently, there are no regulations governing the ownership of the data or how it is stored by these AI companies.
One of the main concerns is that most people overlook their duty of confidentiality when using AI. If a document is analysed by AI containing confidential information, the act of putting it into the 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 may appear, 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 unique thoughts, feelings, and emotions, as well as empathy, which AI cannot replicate because it 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 ethical and justice-related decision-making. No matter how advanced a machine becomes, it can never replicate human emotions.
We will, of course, continue to assess our policy as technology advances.
