In this insightful video, Amy, our Managing Partner, shares her expertise on why relying on AI, including ChatGPT, for legal advice and contract drafting is not in your best interest or the best interest of your business.
Discover five reasons why you should exercise caution when seeking automated solutions for all things legal in your business and learn what to do instead.
Watch below!
We are pleased to provide transcripts to our videos to enhance accessibility for our readers.
Amy Roepke, 0:00:
Hello, I’m here today to talk to you about a topic that is in the news quite often. Have you heard of AI? Have you heard of ChatGPT? Well, I’m going to talk to you about ChatGPT. But with a little bit of a twist. See, I went to my ChatGPT account, which anyone can get one, it’s totally free. And I said, Hey, ChatGPT I’d like to know, should I use ChatGPT to write a legal contract. And then the second question, should I use ChatGPT to obtain legal advice about my specific situation? I’m going to tell you the answer. Can you guess the answer? Even ChatGPT said, you should not use ChatGPT. For these two situations. I’m gonna give you my five top reasons why you should not use ChatGPT. And I know that the AI model would agree with me on this.
Amy Roepke, 1:13:
And just real quick, some preliminary information. When I talk about ChatGPT, I’m really talking about any AI generated model, or text predictive model or any technical way that you would use to describe some somebody other than an attorney, or some machine other than attorney to write your legal contracts or to give you legal advice. Alright, so here we go. First of all, five reasons that you do not want to use AI for legal advice, or to write a legal contract.
Amy Roepke, 1:50:
Number one, they don’t have legal expertise. So ChatGPT is mainly and fact probably quite literally, just as good as what’s put into it, meaning garbage in garbage out, you’ve probably heard that before. Whatever you put into the AI, is what you’re gonna get out of it. ChatGPT did not go to law school, it did not sit next to me the table and discuss complex legal theories and problems and questions and issues. ChatGPT did not take the bar exam. That’s my reason number one. It does not have the legal expertise needed to give you legal advice or to write a legal contract specific to you and for your situation.
Amy Roepke, 2:28:
Reason number two, the AI model does not have a contextual understanding. It doesn’t have the ability to ask follow up questions about you and your specific situation, or ascertain your goals, your needs, your wants, or even your desires. Now, assuming that you put all those things into the model, it still isn’t going to be smart enough to give you what you need, specific to your situation. And if you’ve ever had a legal problem before, in the past, what you’ve probably learned is your legal problems are different than the person next to you. Or the person across from you, or the person down the hall. Every person has a legal problem. And I’m saying problem. It could be issue, it could be situation, whatever it is, it’s a legal question. Everyone’s got a different story to tell and a different reason that they need legal advice. So reason number two, ChatGPT does not have a contextual understanding and does not have the ability to understand you and your situation and give you advice and contracts that you need tailored to your situation. Now, I do have that ability. And any lawyer who is well versed in your legal situation and competent to provide you advice on your legal situation is going to be better than AI.
Amy Roepke, 4:14:
Reason number three, why you don’t want to use AI or ChatGPT for legal advice or write a legal contract. There’s no attorney-client relationship. So from a practical perspective, that means that you do not have any expectation of privacy or confidentiality in the information that you put into that model. Now we’ve heard about that a little bit. Maybe in the news, you’ve heard it you read a story or saw something on TV about one or more technology companies who are now developing their own internal AI because their employees started uploading all of this code into the model to try to fill blanks in the code and be more efficient at our jobs, all these good intentions that they had. And then that code became part of the public domain. There was no expectation of privacy in the model, and you can’t have AI sign a nondisclosure agreement, the way that you could have a counter-party to a transaction, sign a nondisclosure agreement, and then hold them to it. ChatGPT is not a person, it can’t be dragged into court, the way that you could drag someone else into court and get an injunction against them, if they are sharing your private information. And when it comes to the attorney-client relationship, there is no confidentiality, anything you put into that model can be used either against you or for someone else’s benefit without even your consent, or your knowledge. So, reason number three, why you do not want to use AI or chatGPT for your legal advice or even for a contract.
Amy Roepke, 6:06:
Okay, so reason number four, is has to do with information, you are going to receive, information from the model that at first, at first glance might look reasonable, it might look complete, it might even look pretty good, until you start reading a little bit deeper, or until you start kind of digging through and trying to make sure that the information that you receive is actually going to fit for your situation and are going to apply to your legal issue, and is really going to address your needs and your wants and desires and goals. And you’re gonna find out that is not equipped to do that. And that takes us back to reason number two, that lack of contextual understanding. So do yourself a favor, don’t use ChatGPT for legal advice, and don’t use it to try to draft a contract, and I’ll say specifically about contracts is going to give you exactly what you asked for. So if you say write me a commercial lease, for a 3500 square foot building, it’s going to write you a commercial lease for 3500 square foot building, it’s going to give you a whole bunch of blanks that need to be filled in. And it’s going to ignore the fact that there may be certain laws in your area that might apply to the use or the writing of the lease, it’s going to ignore the fact that, for example, you want to you want to a five year lease while in certain parts of the country or certain states, that lease has to be notarized. It’s not going to give you that information. It’s not going to say hey, don’t just sign this, take it down and get it notarized.
Amy Roepke, 7:48:
So it’s a good example of one very basic requirement that ChatGPT is not even necessarily going to tell you about. And then finally, my fifth reason why you don’t want to use ChatGPT or an AI generated model to obtain legal advice or when a contract is because of the unknown legal consequences. So I can tell you more often times, and I mean, I can count on these fingers, and then some that I’ve helped clients with, not necessarily AI generated contracts, but templated contracts or contracts that they’ve cobbled together from their cousin’s business and their their friends, business, and maybe their sisters, friends, cousins business, and they’ve taken all these things that look pretty good, put it all together, and we’re dealing with another garbage in garbage out situation. So similarly, speaking in ChatGPT is, is not going to help you understand that this garbage in garbage out process is going to create legal consequences for you that you are not thinking about, and that you can’t see or foresee the way that an experienced attorney can. So that’s my final tip for you. Please do not use ChatGPT to get legal advice, or to read a contract. In either case, whether you’re looking for general advice or advice specific to your situation. I encourage you to reach out to an attorney, ask questions, hire the right attorney for you.
Amy Roepke, 9:34:
You may not always find that right attorney the first time. If you need somebody and you’re not sure who to go to you can always just shoot me an email and I’m happy to refer you to someone in my network. But refrain from using AI to solve any of your legal issues or legal problems, or to advise you on your legal situation because I can tell you even ChatGPT says don’t use me. In fact in its own words, It says, using ChatGPT to write legal contracts is not recommended. While it is a powerful language model that can generate text, including legal language. It is not a substitute for professional legal advice or the services of a qualified attorney. So if you need a legal contract, have a legal issue or you require legal advice, give us a call. If it’s something we can handle, we’d be glad to help you. If it’s not something we’re able to handle. We will be glad to refer you to someone in our network that we feel would be a good fit for you. All right, thanks. I’ll see you next time.
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