Ask HN: How long until lawyers, other industries are automated with AI?

[inesranzo]

Hi HN, I was just thinking about this and wanted to share:

Lawyers are slow, terse and way too expensive today to the point it feels that they are gatekeeping for being inefficient and a lot of time wasted for everyone.

With the fact that LLMs are getting more and more better with text and hallucination rate is going to near zero, there should be no reason that lawyers rates should be extremely high in an AI world.

There are massive case law datasets that are available and paired with LLMs and the need for only 1 or two lawyers, it should stand to reason that lawyers + AI should get more done and not charge obscene rates.

I imagine that there would be a either an AI lawyer or a lawyer paired with AI that can take on 100,000 or more cases a year and charge $100 max rather than take on 10 cases and charge millions without AI.

We've already seen AI progress with everyone becoming digital artists, freelance writers, or programmers using AI and those who are already in those professions 10x or 100x ing in productivity already using these AI tools.

Why are industries like finance, consulting, lawyers, accredited investors too slow and gatekeeping with high rates of fees when AI can lower the barrier to entry for everyone and in the process 100x the people in these existing industries productive output?

[taylodl]

I understand your perspective on AI potentially replacing lawyers, but it's important to consider the current trends and realistic timelines.

For the next 5-10 years, it's unlikely that AI will fully automate the role of lawyers. Instead, AI is being used to enhance productivity and efficiency within the legal profession. This means that while some tasks may be automated, lawyers will still play a crucial role in providing legal services.

One significant benefit of AI is that it can help reduce the cost of legal services, making them more accessible to people who might not have been able to afford them otherwise. This could lead to an increase in demand for legal services and potentially even an increase in the number of lawyers in the short term.

In the long run, while some positions may be eliminated due to automation, AI will primarily serve as a tool to augment the capabilities of lawyers, allowing them to focus on more complex and nuanced aspects of their work.

So, rather than replacing lawyers, AI is transforming the profession and creating new opportunities for those who adapt to these changes.

[inesranzo → taylodl]

it would be nice if you give your own opinion, or if you said 'you didn't know' rather than have chatgpt respond for you! :D

[taylodl → inesranzo]

That is my own response. Even if it weren't, the fact that today's chat bots can pass the Turing Test doesn't mean they've capable of being a lawyer.

[bigyabai]

It depends on how much responsibility the AI/AI company takes when their AI attorney fails to represent a client. The process will fail (as it does with human representation), so planning for that contingency will make or break your business. I don't think the American justice system is super interested in giving robots an easy time representing human clients, so I see this as a faraway prospect.

Law firms will continue to exist because they exude confidence and certainty that AI can't get even at the lowest temperature. I say this as someone who hates lawyers and AI just about equally, FWIW.

[ferguess_k]

Coders are the first to be automated. The other industries may follow but in a much slower pace.

Lawyers, accountants and anything governmental are definitely among the last to be replaced.

Basically I'd imagine any position that is retail-customer-facing and does not have legal obligations is going to be automated first. In the coding space those are frontend developers, any data engineers that directly talks to business stakeholders, etc.

(I think many people are going to bring up the problem of "getting requirements from customers" so I'll add my thoughts if they do come up)

[bell-cot]

It's worth noting that lawyers make the laws...including those about whether or not they could be replaced by AI's.

And that, over the decades, I've seen lots of egregious errors on 100%-human-generated legal documents.

[minimaxir]

> hallucination rate is going to near zero

That is extremely not happening, even with the latest LLM releases.

[inesranzo → JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B]

> I have seen a lot of bitter comments like yours about professionals "gatekeeping" their knowledge.

As to gatekeeping, yes I believe it is for the lawyers and finance fields, programming is an open field, why not other fields?

[JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B → inesranzo]

Law and finance are regulated industries, it's not gatekeeping.

> programming is an open field

Absolutely not. Some coding jobs are regulated too like medical devices, defense, or finance. It's the law because you have specific responsibilities that can have a lot of bad consequences. Feel free to do something else if you don't want to respect that. I don't want to have dead people around me because you have a grudge against lawyers whatever they did to you.