THE FIRST THING WE DO, LET’S REPLACE ALL THE LAWYERS: AI Will Kill All the Lawyers.
‘Last week we did an experiment, a kind of simulation. We took a real, recent and important case – a complex civil court appeal which I wrote, and it took me a day and a half. We redacted all identifying details, for anonymity and confidentiality, and we fed the same case to Grok Heavy AI. And then we asked it to do what I did. After some prompting, the end result was…’ He shakes his head. ‘Spectacular. Actually staggering. It did it in 30 seconds, and it was much better than mine. And remember, I am very good at this.’
He sits back, wry yet resigned. ‘It was at the level of a truly great KC. The best possible legal document. And all done in seconds for pennies. How can any of us compete? We can’t.’
My experience has been that technological revolutions — even the real ones — don’t soak in as fast as enthusiasts predict. But Robert Reich’s advice to join the “symbolic analysts” is looking likely to be, well, as good as all Robert Reich’s other advice. See also, “learn to code.”
Related: AI won’t kill all the lawyers: Labor markets are complex systems and AI is mere technology. “AI is not Dick the Butcher. It isn’t trying to clear the path for tyranny. It’s a productivity shock. Productivity shocks don’t usually abolish a domain; they unwind rents and concentrate power.”