Artificial intelligence can and should be a ‘force for good’ that can ‘democratise’ legal advice, the deputy head of civil justice Lord Justice Birss said last month.
In the latest speech from a member of the senior judiciary that enthuses about the benefits of technology, Birss outlined the ways in which he believes AI can bring about real improvements within the justice system.
Speaking at King’s College London Law School last month, he said: ‘AI used properly has the potential to enhance the work of lawyers and judges enormously. I think it will democratise legal help for unrepresented people. I think it can and should be a force for good. And I think it will be, as long as it is done properly and appropriately.’
The senior judge was keen to point out that there will still be a role for humans, however. He said: ‘History suggests that to argue that we do not need to worry, because machines will never be capable of doing this or that kind of information processing task, is usually a mistake.
‘The argument needs to be that for us to have a system of justice, people must be at the heart of it. The fact that something can be done does not always mean it should be done.
‘When one thinks about the rule of law and access to justice, a critical aspect is public trust in the legal system itself. I can’t imagine a legal system which does not have people at its heart as key representatives and decision makers.’
Birss noted that the launch of ChatGPT about 18 months ago had transformed the profile of AI generally, attracting a great deal of attention in the law.
The judge predicted that one of the key ways in which large language models have the potential to transform access to justice is by ‘democratising legal advice and assistance’ through their ability to provide this ‘either for free, or at very little cost, in circumstances which represent a significant improvement on the current state of affairs.’
Birss cited research by a Stanford professor which showed that when a group of ordinary people searched for answers to basic legal problems on the internet, they got accurate advice around 40% of the time. But when they used ChatGPT, this rose to 60 or 65%.
‘Now of course getting advice which is only accurate 60 or 65% of the time is not ideal – and it’s certainly not what you would expect from a magic circle law firm,’ remarked Birss. ‘However, it is striking that it is significantly better than what would happen if a normal person simply used a search engine.’
The judge added: ‘Simply unleashing a chat bot like ChatGPT runs the real risk of hallucination, but here is where another aspect of this technology is very interesting… it is possible to use the natural language ability of these large language models but in effect, point them at a closed list database of answers. The user is able to interact with the system in a natural way, but the answers which the system will provide to them are constrained by reference to the content of a database which has already been ratified.
‘We have tried out a very simple experimental version of this in the court service, as a way of giving help to court staff on the use of a particular IT system. The test we did in house was successful. Indeed it also identified inconsistencies in what we had thought was a consistent pre-existing set of help information.’
A second key way that AI could make a big difference in the justice system is by harnessing its ability to summarise information.
‘What I would like is to have a system whereby every judge, when they receive a new case, is provided with a cover sheet which includes a brief summary of what it is about,’ reflected Birss.
‘Perfect accuracy is not required because the point of the summary is to accelerate the judge’s preparation of the case. The judge will then go into court better prepared.
‘They will listen to the parties and, just as in the current world in which judges have been given a summary prepared by an assistant, by the time the judge has listened to the parties the summary is no longer relevant.
‘Any inaccuracies it might have contained do not matter. It has still served its purpose at the beginning. Now I don’t know for sure how good a large language model would be at doing this kind of thing, but from what I have seen, I think it might be possible.
‘The important thing to emphasise is that the large language model here is not deciding the case, nor is it acting in a manner which is different from ways in which we already work.
‘One could also imagine that the case summary could be provided to the parties as part of the hearing. One could imagine a case operating over a number of days in which the transcription service which AI can operate could be used to provide summaries of the day’s evidence to the parties and the judge as the case progressed. The process would be entirely transparent but it could well save a significant amount of work done by parties and judges during proceedings of that kind.’
Birss’s final example of where AI can make strides is in Technology Assisted Review (or ‘TAR’), where in fact machine learning has been used by law firms for some years in the process of discovery or disclosure of documents.
The judge said: ‘Now one of the real problems with machine learning of course is bias, but bias is a problem for people too. A well-known source of bias, which judges are trained to think about and avoid as best they can, is confirmation bias.
‘Confirmation bias is at play if someone is looking into a collection of material to find something which supports their hypothesis. It might be that an AI given the task of searching for material relevant to an issue would not exhibit confirmation bias in the same way.
‘My point is not that these systems are perfect, because they are not; but they may exhibit qualities which in some ways make them better than people in some circumstances. We certainly ought to take a look.’
Speeches from the senior judiciary extolling the benefits of technology seem to come thick and fast these days. And while lawyers working in county courts in particular – facing huge delays, poor service and a crumbling infrastructure – would no doubt prefer to see senior judges focussing on the more immediate problems, there is no doubt that AI will indeed have a pivotal role to play in the justice system of the future.
April 8, 2024 by Rachel Rothwell
Insights
