US Supreme Court's Roberts Urges 'Caution' as AI Reshapes Legal Field (reuters.com) 65
AI represents a mixed blessing for the legal field, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said in a year-end report published on Sunday, urging "caution and humility" as the evolving technology transforms how judges and lawyers go about their work. From a report: Roberts struck an ambivalent tone in his 13-page report. He said AI had potential to increase access to justice for indigent litigants, revolutionize legal research and assist courts in resolving cases more quickly and cheaply while also pointing to privacy concerns and the current technology's inability to replicate human discretion.
"I predict that human judges will be around for a while," Roberts wrote. "But with equal confidence I predict that judicial work - particularly at the trial level - will be significantly affected by AI." The chief justice's commentary is his most significant discussion to date of the influence of AI on the law, and coincides with a number of lower courts contending with how best to adapt to a new technology capable of passing the bar exam but also prone to generating fictitious content, known as "hallucinations." Roberts emphasized that "any use of AI requires caution and humility." He mentioned an instance where AI hallucinations had led lawyers to cite non-existent cases in court papers, which the chief justice said is "always a bad idea." Roberts did not elaborate beyond saying the phenomenon "made headlines this year."
"I predict that human judges will be around for a while," Roberts wrote. "But with equal confidence I predict that judicial work - particularly at the trial level - will be significantly affected by AI." The chief justice's commentary is his most significant discussion to date of the influence of AI on the law, and coincides with a number of lower courts contending with how best to adapt to a new technology capable of passing the bar exam but also prone to generating fictitious content, known as "hallucinations." Roberts emphasized that "any use of AI requires caution and humility." He mentioned an instance where AI hallucinations had led lawyers to cite non-existent cases in court papers, which the chief justice said is "always a bad idea." Roberts did not elaborate beyond saying the phenomenon "made headlines this year."
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Yes, Thomas definitely needs to recuse himself from any cases that might annoy leftists.
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If his corruption doesn't bother you when he's doing what you want, I assume you're willing to be entirely consistent and applaud if the Democrats start playing dirty too?
Oh, that's right, you're a hypocrite.
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> and applaud if the Democrats start playing dirty too?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw8zvC8iVxw
Barack Obama:
I want to be honest it's not as if it's just Republicans who have monkeyed around with elections in the past sometimes Democrats have to you know whenever people are in power they're you know they have this tendency to try to you know tilt things in their Direction
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Have Trump or Ginni Thomas been convicted of insurrection or even charged?
Pointless report (Score:1, Troll)
This seems like one of the lowest-priority issues that could be facing the US Supreme Court right now. The whole system is falling apart at the seams due to the American right wing successfully co-opting the power of the body without any respect for actual law and process, and Roberts wants to publish his thoughts on AI. Cute.
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You can buy a justice for the price of a luxury RV. https://www.theguardian.com/us... [theguardian.com]
Any republican outrage that Thomas had a loan forgiven? Oh wait that outrage only applies to poor people.
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>Any republican outrage that Thomas had a loan forgiven? Oh wait that outrage only applies to poor people.
That's not quite correct. I think it's more like, "only applies to the current convenient out group".
Right wing 'ethics' are based on whatever is perceived to have the best potential to protect or advance their position and will change from moment to moment. If you assume you can play fairly with them, then they end up getting away with putting stooges on the Supreme Court.
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"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." -- Frank Wilhoit
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If you can prove that there was a quid pro quo go a head and indict Thomas, I would be all for it.
But comparing that to the student loan forgiveness, where the money comes from the public purse, is an inapt comparison. There is a massive national debt in addition to inflation, and the only way we've been able to sustain it, is our position as the global reserve currency.
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The US is in serious danger of devolving into a christofascist state, and the right wing will cheer it on and shout down anyone who warns them of the inevitable outcome of what they're doing.
The US will not survive having Bible Belt politics and authoritarian kleptocracy forced on its entire population.
Re:Pointless report (Score:4, Insightful)
"The US will not survive having Bible Belt politics and authoritarian kleptocracy forced on its entire population."
Joe Biden IS the authoritarian kleptocracy, Your metaphor is mixed.
PS, here in Washington State true blue Jay Inslee pissed on the First and Fifth Amendments and suspended the legislature as well, then ruled by decree and proclamation during the pandemic. Since then he has focused on eliminating the Second Amendment.
The authoritarian threats are from the Left.
Also it was Hilary who called half the country "deplorables' and recently called for 'deprogramming' them. Not seeing any sign of live and let live from her.
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>Joe Biden IS the authoritarian kleptocracy
You really need to cut back on the Koolaid when you post that as a justification for Trumpism. In fact, your ability to post that is exactly why Hillary called you a deplorable who was in need of deprogramming. You're in a cult, destroying your nation in the name of a pathetic grifter who couldn't tell the truth to save his life... but yeah, 'Biden'.
And just to be clear - the US doesn't HAVE a left. It has the Democrats, who are right of centre, and the Repub
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I assume you are talking about Bernie. First he lost, second he is a self-described democratic socialist not a socialist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Bernie's more in line with Nordic social democracy than some abstract evil notion of socialism. The Democrats consistently in power are more in line with moderate Republicans of the past.
In my opinion, the problem on the right is the political media machine that is built t
Re: Pointless report (Score:1)
lol @ the alt right sock puppet mods /. is that active
The trick is to space them out over time, not pile on +5 in the first hour as if
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>The US is in serious danger of devolving into a christofascist state,
Utterly deranged, there have never in our entire history been less Christians' than now, most of the magic sky daddy believers are uneducated boomers or migrants.
It's a warning shot (Score:2, Interesting)
AI will also make it possible to do all sorts of research that otherwise wouldn't be and raise all kinds of new legal arguments. He's warning lawyers not to waste the Court's time.
That said I don't think anyone's going to terribly much listen given how the state of the court is these days. I don't think anyone considers Roberts's Court particularly legitimate
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Are "AI hallucinations" any worse than citing 17th century witch trial judges? Wasting our time is an entitlement for the justices, not the other way around.
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Citing 17th century judges, is important in an unenumerated rights analysis, because there was literally nothing in the constitution about abortion, so you would have to determine what the people who wrote the document, and which was ratified by the people meant. The whole idea of separation of powers, is that the legislative branches make the law, and its not the role of judges to make law, but to interpret the law's meaning or to resolve conflicts between laws, because those legislators are democratically
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Re:Pointless report (Score:4, Interesting)
I work in both AI and Legal, and you are so completely full of shit.
The fact of the matter is, that the current US supreme court, is literally hyper focused on "textualism", rather than the "ends justifies the means" rationalizations of the 70's, resulting in usurping the role of the legislative branch with judicial activism, which led to things like:
Allowing states to have non unanimous criminal juries
Allowing affirmative action
Calling abortion a constitutional right.
Infringements on the First and Second amendment
Allowing the president to engage in wars without congressional delegation.
All of which are completely contrary to the text of the constitution but somehow rationalized, by whatever "the ends justifies the means" justification that happens to appear.
The completely opposite contrast to this is the "code as law" philosophy, which will be accelerated by the use of artificial intelligence by myself and others, which will treat the law the same way your compiler treats code
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"All of which are completely contrary to the text of the constitution but somehow rationalized, by whatever "the ends justifies the means" justification that happens to appear."
And for anyone who doesn't understand "ends justifies the means", just look at Alito's justification for overturning Roe. Because Witches.
"The completely opposite contrast to this is the "code as law" philosophy, which will be accelerated by the use of artificial intelligence by myself and others, which will treat the law the same w
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Even Ginsburg criticized the reasoning behind Roe v. Wade, despite appreciating the outcome.
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No, the courts use the "text as informed by history" to understand what the constitution means, Alito wrote:
"Next, the Court examines whether the right to obtain an abortion is rooted in the Nation’s history and tradition and whether it is an
essential component of “ordered liberty.” The Court finds that the right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and tradition."
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No? Oh, right, it's all textualism until the plain text doesn't work for you. J
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>and the Colorado legislature is free to address any difference it has with the Colorado Supreme Court's opinion any way it wishes?
No, because of federal preemption, under the supremacy clause of the constitution, and probably some procedural due process issues. Also, its absurd to call whatever Donald Trump did as an "insurrection", because at the time that the things were going on, he was literally the "head of state" of the government. There is a distinction between trying to rig an election, and tryi
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>Was it life, liberty, or property the Colorado Supreme Court deprived Trump of?
You need to understand the difference between procedural due process, and substantive due process, you are citing substantive due process. In any matter, the Colorado Supreme Court is depriving its citizens of the "liberty" to elect their own representatives, and thus Trump could raise a third party claim in addition to his own "liberty" interest in being able to be in the republican primary, under the first amendment right t
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>Or where you suggest there's any relevant case law on super delegates and equal protection claims.
The bernie bros who sued the DNC in 2016
>Or where you fail to cite which procedural due process right is allegedly impaired.
expost facto laws, and actions in excess in jurisdiction
>Or are you contending that the federal government can impose trial-like conditions on the actions of a state legislature
"U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton" (1995)
>Neutral decisionmaker: CO legislature
That is called a "b
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>The 3rd Section of the 14th Amendment was a literal ex post facto law and bill of attainder. Please enlighten me as to the legal acrobatics needed to make it ineffective in spite of that being the core of its actual purpose.
No, a bill of attainder is where the legislature says that "Donald Trump is guilty of insurrection" without a trial, not making some law that applies generally to all people. If Donald Trump had a conviction by a jury of insurrection, then there would be no problem with the legislatu
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" But it's wholly inadequate to support the proposition "that democrats can have 'super delegates' without violating the equal protection clause."
Because the democratic party is a corporation and not the government, and "equal protection" only applies to the government.
"the DNC has the right to have its delegates ‘go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way,’ "
Re: Pointless report (Score:2)
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but AI isn't a novel issue (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe the chief justice should spend some time addressing the court's own reputation issues, starting with a certain justice with a long history of getting (and lying about) very expensive gifts and trips from judicial-influencers.
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> If the lawyer instead uses AI to look up briefings, don't they have to do the same diligence, else they face the same wrath?
Yes, and it makes for nice news articles once in a while where we get to laugh at lazy ignorant lawyers trying to avoid work while still billing for it. When judges discover a lawyer trying to drown them in AI-generated bullshit, they generally do not react well and it is very bad for the lawyer's career.
> Maybe the chief justice should spend some time addressing the court's o
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The schools have been graduating too many lawyers (Score:3)
Imagine if you had a llm that would automatically prepare the case and the arguments and everything and do all the research for you w
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We are basically relying on a bottleneck created by the need to manually research cases in order to prevent a giant legal apocalypse
98% of Federal Court cases are settled https://www.npr.org/2023/02/22... [npr.org]
TFA also mentions that the same situation exists at the State level as well.
All it takes for your apocalypse to materialize is for X% of defendants to say "I want a trial"
Re: The schools have been graduating too many lawy (Score:2)
An LLM? Someone that holds a Master of Laws degree? What would be the problem with that? You don't need to have passed the bar after receiving your JD or LLM to do work for another lawyer, you just couldn't have clients yourself.
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I don't get it- if a lawyer has an intern look up court cases to use in briefings, the lawyer is responsible for making sure the cases exist, are relevent, etc, else they face the judge's wrath. If the lawyer instead uses AI to look up briefings, don't they have to do the same diligence, else they face the same wrath? There's nothing novel about checking your damn homework before turning it in.
Maybe the chief justice should spend some time addressing the court's own reputation issues, starting with a certain justice with a long history of getting (and lying about) very expensive gifts and trips from judicial-influencers.
I can see AI, as we know it, affecting the legal profession far more than haulage. AI can easily handle large volumes of unambiguous information better than humans. So instead of asking a paralegal to go get all information related to rulings on green paint sales in the south east Kentucky region, they'll ask a computer. It will eventually get so sophisticated that you can add fuzzier modifiers like "include information on paint additives used in those cases". Almost like the kind of question they'd ask the
It's dangerous we haven't worked out yet (Score:3)
AI should be banned in the court room * (Score:2)
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I think having an AI assistant that can only look up items in a proper legal database due to relevance to an existing case would be a good idea. A search assistant; give it some standardized case notes as input, then let it spit out suggested arguments and supporting citations based on court records of success in similar situations, and order the output by descending success rate or cost of execution.
Anything that has the ability to make up 'citation-like content' should absolutely be banned not just as a
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A language model produces language based on its training data. There is no way for it to produce something that is true, it just produces tokens which have a high probability of following the previous tokens. If your training data is legal documents then it will just be very good at producing legal documents that *look* right.
So maybe an AI can do what you say, but it won't be one that is based on the language models we're seeing today.
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You think that a lawyer or judge will be more unbiased than an AI? think again!
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1018033108
https://www.iit.edu/news/gpt-4-passes-bar-exam
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Do you remember that case where a drugged up / drunken (maybe either or both) kid harassed a farmer, and the farmer defen
Take it slow and easy (Score:4, Insightful)
The legal community sees AI as a competitor (Score:2)
A ton of everyday legal work could be done using AI. Wills, trusts, research, going pro se in court. This has the potential to massively cut into their grift.
Don't like AI, nor Polictical Suprime Court (Score:2)