There is dumb, and then there is, apparently, ‘nuclear dumb.’ According to an exclusive interview (paywalled) with Bloomberg,
Banning the use of artificial intelligence in legal proceedings will be discussed by the Texas Supreme Court, Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock (R) said . . . . The nuclear option is “on the table,” Blacklock told Bloomberg Law on the sidelines of the State Bar of Texas’ annual meeting in San Antonio, signaling that the court could take what would be an unprecedented response to confronting the role of AI in the courts.
Well, yes… it would be unprecedented, because it would be asinine. And this is probably one of those times when judges ought to exercise a bit of technological humility. If you have no idea what you are talking about, best leave that talking to someone else. (Hence the wisdom of the brilliant Richard Feynman: “I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.” Same for you, judge, when it’s not a question of law.)
In this particular instance, the foolishness is self-evident: not only is there the massive improvement in generative AI that only a Luddite would ignore (more on this in a moment), but there is the commonplace extractive artificial intelligence. So, Judge, you’d like to ban Texas lawyers from… running a Google, Westlaw, or Lexis search?! Yeah, I thought not.
One can contrast those extractive AI tools from each company’s generative AI tool, be it Gemini, Protégé, or CoCounsel, not to mention many other alternatives. And here’s where the judge is also thinking wrong: we aren’t there yet, but I predict the day when it will be malpractice not to use such tools. Just like it would be unacceptable to ‘stick only to the books’ if one is billing out at $1,000 an hour and the answer is merely a click away, it will become unacceptable not to use these time-saving, very impressive tools. That one must verify the results says nothing—many a partner thinks the same of associate work.
Now, I know, I know… there is also poor speaking and poor reporting, we are all ‘guilty,’ and not much should be made of a pretty meaningless article. Still, the judge’s assertion is sufficiently ignorant that I might as well draw attention to it in a pretty meaningless blog post.
Now, Justice Blacklock’s underlying “concern is [that] if we get to a place where we rely too much on machines, we’re going to lose a human and spiritual element of what it means to pursue justice.” This is indeed a longstanding concern of science fiction, and a fun topic for the ivory tower. It’s one I enjoy thinking and writing about myself.
So, yes, the day may come, Judge, when it is a genuine question for courts. But that day is not today. Surely, there are any number of more pressing concerns on the Texas Supreme Court’s docket. And I—or one of our machine overlords—will let you know if that changes.
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