Professional Articles | Application of ChatGPT in legal practice
【Zhuhai Lawyer, Zhuhai Legal Consulting, Zhuhai Law Firm, Jingshi Law Firm, Jingshi Zhuhai】
"As technology continues to advance, legal professionals are beginning to explore the potential uses of AI in law. One example is ChatGPT, a natural language generative model developed by tech company OpenAI. The model can generate human-like text based on given inputs and has been used in a variety of applications, including legal research and document generation.
ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence called a language model. It is trained on large text datasets, such as books and articles, to understand and generate human language. When given a prompt, it generates a response using patterns learned from the training data. It can answer questions, write stories, and engage in conversations, but its responses are based on the patterns it sees in the training data, not its own understanding of the world. It's like a language-based computer program that can answer your questions or generate text if it finds similar patterns in the training data. ”
The above two paragraphs are written by ChatGPT, and as long as it is given a definite proposition, it can continue to "write" a complete article. It is not difficult to find that if the author does not make a key reminder, it is difficult for us to recognize that the above text is written by a person or ChatGPT, and its language logic has reached the level of ordinary college students. Then, regardless of the level, the author will continue the beginning of the ChatGPT article, complete the writing responsibilities for the rest of this article, and focus on discussing the application of ChatGPT in legal practice.
01What is artificial intelligence
Before we start researching and using ChatGPT, it is necessary to understand the meaning of artificial intelligence (hereinafter referred to as "AI"), which was first introduced in the 1950s and has since been applied to a wide range of technology types. However, there is currently no uniform, clear definition of AI in the world.
AI was originally described as "the science and engineering of making intelligent machines," and later Stanford's Manning Christopher defined "artificial intelligence" as human-centered artificial intelligence. The National Institute of Standards and Technology subsequently proposed a more modern definition, defining AI as "software or hardware that can learn to solve complex problems, make predictions, or undertake tasks that require human-like perception (such as vision, speech, and touch), perception, cognition, planning, learning, and communication" [1].
Despite the lack of a specific definition, some typical characteristics of AI can help people better understand whether a technology has the attributes of artificial intelligence. For its part, the term AI may indicate that the technology involves tools that can do human-like thinking or reasoning, resulting in originality. However, the capabilities of AI are not yet sufficient to reach the level of human novelty and ingenuity, so it can be assumed that current AI technology is usually through computer review, collecting large data, and identifying patterns or other features in the data.
02What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT (full name: Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is a chatbot program developed by OpenAI in the United States[2] and released on November 30, 2022[3]. ChatGPT is a natural language processing tool driven by artificial intelligence technology, which can conduct conversations by learning and understanding human language, and can also interact according to the context of the chat, truly chat and communicate like humans, and even complete tasks such as writing emails, video scripts, copywriting, translation, code, and writing papers.
03Application of ChatGPT in legal practice
Since its launch in November 2022, ChatGPT has revolutionized our understanding of the possibilities of AI. This conversational chatbot can easily perform a range of human-like tasks, such as writing and debugging code, composing lyrics, writing in the style of a particular author, and answering test questions. And there's no denying that ChatGPT has penetrated the legal industry, from assessing the likely outcome of litigation cases, to helping judges make decisions, to assisting judges in researching and writing briefs.
Not only that, but most lawyers and law students abroad are likely to be exposed to ChatGPT when using legal research databases such as Lexis or Westlaw, which are steadily increasing the popularity of ChatGPT. [4] ChatGPT has been widely used in the legal field, and it is even developing in a deeper and farther direction.
ChatGPT has a variety of application functions in the legal field
1. Find specific legal terms directly
In traditional search engines, it is difficult to identify the specific legal terms we are looking for through a single search, except for high-frequency laws. This traditional search mode usually requires us to consult and select the full text of the law given by the search engine, which virtually increases the difficulty of work and reduces work efficiency. However, ChatGPT is different from traditional search engines in that it can directly find specific legal terms by asking questions, without secondary screening and searching, which can effectively save search time.
2. Give appropriate advice based on specific disputes
In a legal dispute, different legal relationships may be involved, there are multiple points of dispute, even lawyers or judges specializing in this direction may not be able to make a comprehensive analysis in a short period of time, and the general public without receiving relevant professional training, it is more difficult to traverse the relevant laws, and when encountering legal disputes, it will be difficult to find effective remedies.
However, ChatGPT will analyze based on existing learning materials and initially give a more complete plan, so that ordinary people can also obtain relatively accurate information without legal basis. However, due to the limitations of the current Chinese in ChatGPT and the fact that the mainland has not fully opened the access to judgment documents to foreign companies, the answers given by ChatGPT are not completely accurate, and there may even be situations such as "a serious nonsense".
Despite this, ChatGPT's answers are highly accurate and are extremely useful for both ordinary people and legal workers.
3. Analyze in accordance with relevant laws and regulations in light of the specific facts of the case
The application of the law is not simply a reference to the law, different cases need to be analyzed and adjusted in combination with the specific facts of the case, and even some cases have a variety of competing charges, therefore, in the actual handling of cases, it is necessary to summarize the focus issues and conduct a comprehensive analysis, and finally reach the correct judgment. Traditional search engines do not have such a function, and people need to find and filter from the cases they search, and combine their own knowledge to determine this. ChatGPT, on the other hand, analyzes the facts of the case and gives the legal determination factors that should be considered in different situations, which has certain reference value. For specific cases, please refer to the figure below:
However, due to the imperfection of its Chinese knowledge base and database content and the lack of cases, ChatGPT's reference to knowledge is still flawed.
4. Write legal documents
In practice, ChatGPT can write a variety of legal documents such as indictments based on people's descriptions, and although the generated content is not perfect and the form is not accurate, its complex reasoning ability and its essential working methods are still powerful and shocking. With the update and iteration of ChatGPT, its practical effect will continue to improve, closer to professional legal practitioners.
It is worth noting that ChatGPT not only has complex reasoning capabilities and can generalize to new tasks, but also rejects inappropriate questions within its body of knowledge, as well as problems outside its knowledge scope.
5. Make a judicial decision
Previously, a Colombian judge used ChatGPT in a medical rights case of a child diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to determine whether the boy was exempt from paying medical expenses and transportation expenses, and ruled accordingly. [5] In the judgment documents, ChatGPT gives specific legal provisions, applicable circumstances, legislative purposes, and the precedents of the Constitutional Court, which can effectively improve the efficiency of litigation cases.
ChatGPT can search and sift through a vast array of legal judgments or cases on the Internet, and select the most applicable law based on the specific circumstances of the case, and even provide a deeper answer to the same question. Even with the development and innovation of technology, functions such as auxiliary generation of judgment documents and automatic backfilling of case information can be realized, effectively assisting judicial adjudication.
6. Write legal papers
Recently, a large number of tutorials using ChatGPT to write papers have appeared on various network platforms, and after the study of experts and professors at home and abroad, the papers written by ChatGPT have been affirmed, they believe that the papers written by ChatGPT have met the basic requirements of undergraduate papers, and can be regarded as a qualified paper from structure to content. When writing a dissertation, ChatGPT demonstrates a deep understanding of the basic rules of law, and it is able to produce a complete thesis using accurate legal theory under a given topic.
The advent of ChatGPT has sparked heated discussions about the transformative use of AI in many professional fields. In the legal field, the general concern is: is the legal advice provided by ChatGPT accurate and usable, and will it be of great help to the general public and legal practitioners? Can ChatGPT help lawyers draft contracts or even ghostwrite legal documents? In the long run, can ChatGPT completely replace lawyers?
The author believes that although ChatGPT has powerful data processing, reading and writing capabilities, the drawback is that it can only give relevant answers through the existing knowledge base, and its performance for open-ended questions is still unsatisfactory. At least for the foreseeable future, it will not truly replace the knowledge, experience and creativity of lawyers in terms of practical skills. But it is undeniable that it will be a very important helper in the actual work of lawyers, reasonable use of ChatGPT can help lawyers and other legal practitioners work more efficiently, after the new Internet revolution brought by ChatGPT, we should avoid the legal risks brought by ChatGPT at the legislative level, while using ChatGPT technology and human unique wisdom to facilitate work and create a better world.
Exegesis:
[1]《ChatGPT and Other AI Technologies in the Study and Practice of Law》Paul Riermaier
[2] "The strongest chatbot ChatGPT is released, AI is coming to grab jobs again?" 》Daily Economic News 2022-12-12
[3] "What is ChatGPT? Is ChatGPT a chatbot", Pacific IT Encyclopedia Mobile 2022-12-12
[4]《How ChatGPT Could Impact Law and Legal Services Delivery》Jan 24, 2023 Michelle Mohney
[5] "Application Scenarios and Development Prospect of ChatGPT in the Legal Field: On the Lack of Training Data and the Generation of False Statements" | Gu Nanfei , source | Frontiers of Legal Scholarship
Lawyer profile
Ms. Fang Yaping is a full-time lawyer at Beijing Jingshi (Zhuhai) Law Firm
Practice Areas: Litigation, Arbitration Legal Services, Special and Perennial Legal Counsel for Governments and Enterprises, Marriage and Family Disputes, Contract Disputes, Private Lending Disputes, Labor and Personnel Disputes
Partial performance:
1. Perennial legal counsel of a Beijing education technology company
2. Perennial legal counsel of a robot industry alliance in Zhongguancun
3. A dispute between a Beijing limited company and a Beijing technology company and a Beijing technology company that infringes the right of information network dissemination of works
4. Dispute over the housing lease contract between a research institute of the Chinese People's Liberation Army and an information industrial park in Wuhan
5. Contract dispute between a military sub-district in Guizhou Province and a development company in Guizhou and a market management company in Kaili City
6. A dispute over a service contract between a management consulting partnership in Shanghai and Anhui XX Co., Ltd