{"id":22616,"date":"2023-05-12T18:23:57","date_gmt":"2023-05-12T10:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/?p=22616"},"modified":"2024-04-17T15:51:14","modified_gmt":"2024-04-17T07:51:14","slug":"chatgpt-disbarred-as-replacement-for-lawyers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/2023\/05\/chatgpt-disbarred-as-replacement-for-lawyers\/","title":{"rendered":"ChatGPT Cannot Fight Court Cases"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Law students have been using ChatGPT to help with their studies but the tool has its limitations.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Lilac Ye<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Law student Adirana Ma* has been using ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, for studying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChatGPT can help me find highlights of case analysis, a journal, and a judgement,\u201d the Year Two student from the City University of Hong Kong says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI use ChatGPT to search case analysis by law firms and translate textbooks and judgements by Hong Kong courts from English to Chinese. Unlike Google Translate, which only translates word by word, ChatGPT does translations with logic,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ChatGPT is developed by American research laboratory OpenAI. It is designed to respond to text-based queries and generate natural language responses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am taking five classes this semester. I have to read more than 1000 pages on average every week. I cannot finish my work without AI. ChatGPT helps me find the main points in required readings by summarising them so it really saves my time,\u201d the 26-year-old says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She pays HK$40 (US$5.1) per month for a virtual private network (VPN) to access ChatGPT as the chatbot is not available for internet users in Hong Kong yet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cContract review is part of a lawyer\u2019s work. ChatGPT can check typos and content\u2019s consistency so I think it is possible for AI to take over some work at law firms such as checking mistakes in contracts but it cannot fully replace lawyers,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChatGPT cannot generate arguments and legal advice as there might be legal loopholes. Different arguments are used by lawyers to build cases and arguments for or against cases,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Adirana Ma uses ChatGPT to help with her legal studies. (Photo courtesy of Adirana Ma)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Another law student James Zhou* also uses ChatGPT for his studies to save time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI use AI for preparing case summaries, polishing articles, and doing legal research,\u201d the City University of Hong Kong student says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was excited when ChatGPT was launched because I thought it could help me with my coursework. But it turns out I have to cross-check answers generated by AI. It does not save much of my time as I expected,\u201d the Year Two student adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI once used ChatGPT to find references for a case, but articles and laws listed in the finding results do not even exist. ChatGPT\u2019s answers are not fully backed by real cases in its database,\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zhou says totally relying on the AI chatbot is \u201ca waste of time\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt cannot help you with its reasoning, legal rules and logic,\u201d Zhou says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
James Zhou has used ChatGPT for legal research. (Photo courtesy of James Zhou)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Associate professor Stuart Hargreaves at the Chinese University of Hong Kong\u2019s Faculty of Law says that the use of AI as a study tool is inevitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy concern is largely about whether students will use it appropriately as a tool, or whether they believe it can entirely replace their own need to work. The latter is a dangerous path for them to go down, since they are basically admitting they have no value to add to the AI\u2019s output,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He thinks the possibility of AI replacing lawyers\u2019 duties depends on how advanced it becomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is likely for AI to replace much of the document review work and low-level drafting that is the preserve of paralegals and junior solicitors,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAI will fundamentally change all kinds of knowledge work, including the study and practice of law. But I think it is hard to predict the exact form of change at this stage,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*Names changed at interviewees\u2019 requests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edited by Victoria Fong
Sub-edited by Phoebe Chu<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Law students have been using ChatGPT to help with their studies but the tool has its limitations. By Lilac Ye Law student Adirana Ma* has been using ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, for studying. \u201cChatGPT can help me find highlights of case analysis, a journal, and a judgement,\u201d the Year Two student from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":22782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2183,7],"tags":[2082,2083,2081],"class_list":["post-22616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-may-2023","category-periscope","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-chatbot","tag-chatgpt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22616"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22776,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22616\/revisions\/22776"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}