“Without human oversight, AI has the potential to cause more harm than good”
E-research and e-discovery are two areas where AI's impact is particularly profound, revolutionising data analysis, document review, and legal investigations. Here’s Robus Consulting Group founder Zohar Fisher.
“Without human oversight, AI has the potential to cause more harm than good”
E-research and e-discovery are two areas where AI's impact is particularly profound, revolutionising data analysis, document review, and legal investigations. Here’s Robus Consulting Group founder Zohar Fisher.
Since its launch into mainstream usage, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has transformed all aspects of daily life. AI is being incorporated across various industries, including legal and academic fields. For lawyers, AI poses an intriguing debate: Do its benefits outweigh the potential risks associated with replacing human functions? E-research and e-discovery are two areas where AI's impact is particularly profound.
What is E-Discovery?
E-discovery is a process used in the initial phases of litigation when involved parties must provide relevant records and evidence related to a case. This process involves obtaining and exchanging electronic data that is sought, located, secured and searched for with the intent of using it as evidence.
E-discovery is relevant in investigations or litigation and includes various forms of electronically stored information such as emails, documents, audio files, images, videos, website content, and instant messages.
These solutions, like those offered by Relativity and Reveal, index vast volumes of data and extract relevant information for cases. Without technological automation, the discovery process is lengthy, tedious, and prone to errors.
What is E-Research?
E-research (or computer-assisted legal research) is a mode of legal research utilising databases of court opinions, statutes, court documents, and secondary material. Electronic databases, such as Westlaw, LexisNexis, and Google Scholar make case law easily accessible to attorneys and researchers.
AI-powered tools in e-research assist in data analysis, literature reviews, and hypothesis generation, enabling researchers to extract relevant information quickly and efficiently. Like e-discovery, the process of sifting through records is lengthy and it's easy to miss key details.
Advantages of increased AI usage
In both industries, the integration of AI could alleviate many common pain points associated with the research and discovery processes. AI allows computers to complete human functions faster, meaning that with the proper algorithms and technology, AI can complete these tasks in just a few minutes:
- Processing Speed and Efficiency: AI enables rapid processing of vast amounts of data. Machine learning algorithms can analyse text, images, and audio data to identify patterns, trends, and anomalies. This capability significantly reduces the time and cost associated with manual data analysis in both e-research and e-discovery.
- Improved Accuracy: AI improves the accuracy of data analysis and document review processes. In E-discovery, AI algorithms can classify documents and prioritise them for review based on their relevance to the case, ensuring key evidence is not overlooked. In E-research, AI helps identify gaps in existing research, suggests new directions, and automates repetitive tasks like data cleaning and normalisation.
- Cost Reduction: AI-powered legal research platforms can help conduct billable work faster, allowing legal professionals to spend more time on higher-level tasks like counseling clients, negotiating with opposing counsel, or strategic planning. This efficiency can provide greater access to help for litigants with limited resources. Additionally, lawyers can take on more pro-bono cases or accommodate more pro-bono clients due to increased availability.
“Without human oversight, AI has the potential to cause more harm than good…These concerns are legitimate, with class action lawsuits alleging privacy violations associated with generative AI tools already underway.”
Risks associated with the use of AI
While AI offers significant advantages, it also introduces several risks. Overall, a loss of control and the risk of privacy breaches are the primary concerns hindering the industry's full exploitation of AI’s potential:
Bias and Discrimination
AI algorithms can inadvertently perpetuate biases present in the data on which they are trained, leading to discriminatory outcomes. Ensuring fairness and equity in AI applications is a critical challenge, especially for firms or private practitioners who handle a variety of demographics and scenarios.
Privacy Concerns
AI relies on large datasets, raising concerns about data privacy and the potential for sensitive information to be misused or exposed. These concerns are legitimate, with class action lawsuits alleging privacy violations associated with generative AI tools already underway.
Misinformation
AI's ability to create deep fake technology (fake images and videos) can spread harmful misinformation and disinformation, particularly in intellectual property law where authenticity is crucial. If AI references deep fake evidence, or if a lawyer abuses AI’s capabilities and submits false evidence, there are serious implications for the parties involved, potentially resulting in life-altering consequences.
Could AI replace us?
A pressing question regarding the increased usage of AI in the legal industry is whether AI could replace lawyers. To some, AI has the potential to replace some entry-level roles, such as paralegals who perform basic tasks like gathering and analysing legal information, organising facts, and reviewing documents. AI-powered tools can handle these time-consuming tasks in moments rather than hours.
However, the risks are significant, and many in the industry agree human supervision is essential to ensure the quality and accuracy of AI-produced work. Without human oversight, AI has the potential to cause more harm than good.
Supporting this view, Or Bar, CEO of the e-discovery company ApparentAI, has expressed that this is precisely the issue with pushing advanced AI into these established processes. Despite developing new technologies, Bar acknowledges law firms often adhere to familiar procedures. While AI has accelerated aspects of the process, the fundamental steps for research and discovery remain the same, and human review is still necessary.
Conclusion
Like many other areas of everyday life, AI is profoundly impacting the legal industry, offering unprecedented capabilities in data analysis, document review, and predictive modeling.
However, the integration of AI comes with the ethical and practical challenges. AI can augment but not fully replace human capabilities, as human judgment is crucial for interpreting complex legal nuances and making contextual decisions.
Collaboration between technology developers, legal experts, and researchers could enhance AI’s power and ensure responsible use of AI. Cooperation between AI and human expertise is the key to leveraging technology for more effective, equitable, and ethical outcomes in the legal world.
Adv. Zohar Fisher is the founder of Robus consulting group and has been combining the legal sector with the field of legal technology and legal marketing since the early 2000s. He is also the founder of Tech&Law – a leading international legal technology company, and the co-founder of LawFlex – one of the world's largest ALSP's (ranked tier#1 on Chambers & Partners on a global scale).