Responsible use of Chat GPT by Lawyers

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Responsible use of Chat GPT by Lawyers

Responsible use of Chat GPT by Lawyers

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June 8, 2023

With the launch of Open AI’s Chat GPT platform this past November, a world of opportunities has opened for various professions. The platform can be very helpful, and some have even claimed that it may soon replace professionals. The legal industry must adapt to these new technologies and as part of this process, lawyers must understand and comprehend the limitations of this platform.

Before diving into the limitations Chat GPT has, it is important to understand that Chat GPT is a chat bot, launched by OpenAI, operating a language model that is capable of generating “realistic, human-like text”¹. It works by returning answers to human prongs introduced into the system. These answers can range from a variety of complex tasks whether that is summarizing data, explaining information, providing examples, or solving problems.

This article will touch on the responsible use of Chat GPT by lawyers by explaining its limitations and briefly discussing some of the benefits that Chat GPT has brought to law firms and lawyers.

1. Benefits

As mentioned above, Chat GPT is a chatbot with incredible capacity of returning answers to human questions or tasks. For lawyers, the use of Chat GPT can provide a good initial research basis, explanations of complex legal topics, citations to relevant articles or important precedents², relevant legal translation and basic contract provisions. Performing some of these tasks can lead to increased efficiency and therefore a reduction in billable hours with clients whilst providing the same quality of service and final product.

The use of Chat GPT can be a very good starting point for legal work, whether that is a contract, a memorandum, a complaint, or any other legal document, but it is important to consider that this cannot be the only source over which the lawyer relies. The lawyer must always consult and confirm with other sources, verify the authenticity of the information provided and that it is up to date. It is also imperative to factor in the lawyer’s own judgement and experience before delivering a final product. Finally, if the law firm allows its lawyers to use Chat GPT or other artificial intelligence, the firm should consider disclosing to clients that artificial intelligence is being used as part to develop the final work product.

As of the date this article was written, there are multiple artificial intelligence (“AI") platforms that are specific for lawyers and law firms that can help with efficiency in multiple ways. Even though, no research was conducted with regards to any of these platforms (i.e. Lexworplace, LexCheck, LawDroid or Everlaw³), the possibilities of AI within the legal profession are endless. Some of these platforms are specialized in document management, legal research, contract analysis and review, client communications, due diligence and eDiscovery, draft and edit legal documents among other capabilities.

Take into consideration that some of these platforms may not share the same limitations discussed below and may have more benefits.

2. Limitations

Inaccurate information

The first limitation that lawyers should keep in mind when using Chat GPT is that it is likely to return inaccurate or biased information as it is not constantly learning, either from inputs or the internet, but rather it is only capable of returning answers on what it has already been trained from⁴.

For context, Chat GPT has been trained with a mix of supervised and unsupervised learning. The former means data fed into the bot is “labeled and structured” whereas the latter means that “the system scans the data, detects its own patterns and derives its own triggering criteria”⁵. This data fed into the system “used a deep learning algorithm to analyze patterns and relationships within the text”⁶. The result is a bot that analyzes the prior word(s) before delivering the next word(s) until it completes a full sentence that is coherent. It is also the reason why Chat GPT usually returns much more complex answers even if asked a yes or no question.

Chat GPT has been fed information from varied sources such as internet, books, articles, magazines, etc., that has helped it learn what “usually” will come after a word, so in a sense it is completing information based on what others have published in the various sources from which it has been fed from. Up until the date this article was written, Chat GPT was trained on information available as of September 2021⁷, which means there is close to two years of new information and legal evolution. Lawyers’ work depends greatly on up-to-date research and information to complete a well-founded argument, contract provision, corporate structures, or daily advice. Given that, Chat GPT has no access to any of the most current and updated legal data sites, the information will rely on, will most likely be inaccurate.

Even though Chat GPT answers can sound convincing, the truth is that the capabilities of the platform are still very limited. OpenAI has stated that Chat GPT may still be inaccurate, untruthful, and even misleading given that it is not connected to the internet⁸. Lawyers should be aware that Chat GPT is no legal expert and that Chat GPT will always return an answer even if there is no answer to the prong asked by the user within the Chat GPT universe of information on which it was trained for. This means that if there is no answer to the question asked by the user, it will return a wrong answer⁹. This becomes especially relevant for lawyers because the law varies greatly between jurisdictions and therefore answers could vary when looking for specific answers under a specific jurisdiction.

Incapable of resolving nuanced situations

Even though related to the first one, a second limitation is that Chat GPT is incapable of resolving nuanced situations. As mentioned before, Chat GPT is currently fed with information updated up until September 2021. The legal industry is constantly evolving, and many times lawyers are faced with problems that are unique or have no precedent and require creative problem solving from human beings that can factor in past experiences with different situations that would not be in a textbook. This means that even if Chat GPT was updated with information available today, it will not be able to resolve these nuanced situations as the way it operates does not let it reason like a human being but only return answers on statistical patterns retrieved from the information it was trained on.

These nuanced situations happen often for lawyers and because they are a nuisance, the people researching about them will find little to no information. It may occur to some of these lawyers that Chat GPT is a good tool to approach these problems, however, because the situations are new and unique, it will be of no help to use Chat GPT and will most likely lead to the opposite or wrong answer. These questions should be answered by consulting professionals in the matter, thorough legal research, and professional judgement to solve the issue, tools that are not available to Chat GPT.

Lack of legal expertise, interpretation and analysis

A third limitation is that Chat GPT is no legal expert¹⁰ and that it has no capacity to interpret or analyze any legal matters¹¹. The interpretation of legal documents is not a simple task as it requires taking into consideration legal principles, context, intent of the parties, case law, nature of the transaction and business among multiple other factors. Even though these factors can be inserted into the prongs, Chat GPT does not have the legal capacity and level of specialization required to analyze and interpret any complex legal provision that may be specific in the context of that business transaction or legal proceeding.

The human factor and professional judgement of each of the lawyers that will be interpreting the situations shall also be taken into account. Lawyers undergo multiple years of training before they are allowed to handle their own case. This experience teaches lawyers how to understand, act, interpret and work around a specific situation and that experience cannot be substituted with AI as of now.

Confidentiality and ethical concerns

The final and most important limitation is the ethical and confidentiality concerns that the use of Chat GPT poses. As stated before, Chat GPT works by returning answers to “prongs” given by human beings. The prongs that humans insert into Chat GPT are of endless capabilities and can range from answering a simple question to loading a document and asking it to analyze it under a certain law.

According to OpenAI, the prompts you input into the system are stored and can be used for training purposes by OpenAI. They even recommend that users do not share any sensitive information¹² in the prongs as it is likely that these prompts will be fed into the system and will at some point be returned as answers to other users prompts and therefore breaching confidentiality.

Taking a closer look at OpenAI privacy policy, they have separated information that is gathered automatically using Chat GPT (Personal Information We Receive Automatically from Your Use of the Services) and information that is provided by the user (Personal Information You Provide).

Personal Information We Receive Automatically from Your Use of the Services. Open AI collects information just like other apps do like name, contact information, account credentials, payment card information and transaction history. They state that “When you use our Services, we may collect Personal Information that is included in the input, file uploads, or feedback that you provide to our Services (“Content”)”¹³
Personal Information You Provide. OpenAI states that they “may automatically collect information about your use of the Services, such as the types of content that you view or engage with, the features you use and the actions you take […]”¹⁴.

In addition, they state that they may use this information to “i) provide, administer, maintain and/or analyze the Services; ii) improve our services and conduct research; iii) communicate with you; iv) develop new programs and services […]”¹⁵. Even though the language is somewhat unclear on what information specifically can be collected and how it can be used, it is evident that Open AI has access to whatever the user inputs into the prompt.

Samsung for example, was in the middle of three separate confidentiality scandals involving Chat GPT earlier this year where employees fed sensitive information into the prompts. In the first two cases, employees shared confidential source code into Chat GPT asking it to find a fix for it whereas in the third instance, they shared confidential meeting notes asking it to prepare a meeting minute out of it¹⁶. Similar to this example, earlier this year, Chat GPT suffered a security breach where users could see other users conversations. Even though this was quickly fixed, it triggered concerns, in particular with European regulators¹⁷.

Lawyers handle sensitive information, not only from the firm but also from the clients. If that information were to be revealed, it could potentially have an impact on the business of the clients. It is therefore imperative that lawyers are very careful about how the information they have access to is used and shared. The simple use of Chat GPT may trigger a Non-Disclosure Agreement penalty provision or even more catastrophic consequences depending on the information revealed.

As for ethical duties, each jurisdiction will typically have their own set of rules regarding the ethics around the service provided, however, it is likely that many of the jurisdictions share the duty to maintain confidential information and to provide competent legal advice to clients. Using Chat GPT with no proper legal analysis and human judgement and review could potentially lead to breach of both ethical duties with consequences for the firm, the client and the lawyer that has breached them.

3. Conclusion

In conclusion, while Chat GPT can be a valuable tool for initial research, explanations and overall increasing efficiency, the responsible use of it by lawyers requires them to understand its limitations. Chat GPT may provide answers that sound convincing but can still be misleading or untruthful, it lacks the ability to reason like a human as it relies on statistical patterns from its training data, which may not encompass the most recent legal developments. It also raises ethical and confidentiality concerns as prompts and information provided to Chat GPT are stored and potentially used for training purposes, which poses risks to the confidentiality of sensitive information.

A lawyer’s work is highly specialized and requires multiple years of training and accumulated experience to deliver results and client satisfaction. There is no doubt that lawyers will have to work with AI if they want to remain competitive, but this use must be done in a responsible manner and in observance of ethical obligations. Chat GPT may be used with caution as a tool to supplement legal work but cannot replace expertise, experience, and judgement of lawyers. When being used, lawyers should never rely upon Chat GPT as the only source of information but rather they must always consult with other sources to ensure that the information provided is accurate, up to date and applicable to the specific situation.