Although generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) chatbots, such as ChatGPT 3.5, are currently being hailed as breakthrough technology akin to the calculator of the 1960s, the Apple II or Atari and Pong of the 1970s, the killer app, Excel, of the 1980s, neither the chatbots nor any other program based on Gen AI currently available will replace the tried-and-true method of editing written work that caters to specific clients in legal representation or written work assignment in legal education because Gen AI cannot discern persuasive, qualitative analyses based on client’s needs or law school pedagogy or andragogy. It can, however, supplement in substantive ways the choices legal practitioners and law students make: choose legal strategies or options; write templates from briefs to memos; and correct grammar. It can simulate conversations with clients, witnesses, attorneys, the courts, and other people with whom attorneys must interact. It can help law professors devise exams catered to their courses and students for whose experience with writing has neither been paramount nor part of their educational tradition.
The session will include:
- an explanation of the difference between Extractive AI and Gen AI;
- a demonstration of a simulation of using a chatbot in legal writing and clinical settings;
- examples of policies that law schools have used to deal with Gen AI;
- questions about some of the concerns (ethical and otherwise) raised by Gen AI;
- a handout on Gen AI prompts and exercises in representation in clinic settings; and
- a glossary of terms that can be helpful to the novice user of Gen AI.
Using non-directive teaching, the session will show how prompts and simulations can assist law school clinician help their students. This session will focus on the ways Gen AI can assist law professors to help their students write better, be more effective and efficient in their analysis, and suggest methods and prompts that can be utilized under the professor’s meticulous care and observation of the student’s written progress.