Potential and Limits: Automation in the modern professional landscape.

AI automation was once purely the subject of science fiction. The idea that we could have personal assistants powered by AI was always thought to be the way of the future. Today, it’s a reality. Anthony Delconte, a businessman based in California says that he uses an OpenAI-powered personal assistant to automate his meeting points. 

“I use it to start off the main points I want to talk about…The hardest part of writing anything for me has been starting it…once things start flowing it’s very easy to do, and it has been immensely helpful to save time.” says Delconte. “I made a skill for Alexa, to do it for me, actually. So now I don’t even have to write down the request.”

Delconte says that integrating it with his Amazon Alexa has helped his workflow immensely. “I can write down ideas or notes from meetings and I don’t have to break my flow to request writing points or a summary. I just have to say it…my Alexa is always on my desk, so it’s very convenient.” Delconte says that the amount of time it saves him has been extremely helpful in his personal life. 

“It used to be work work work…now I’ve picked up a few hobbies again…I spend my weekends touring around on my motorcycle…I used to spend my weekends organizing my ideas and making sure that they were as fleshed out as possible before I begin to forget the key details. Now I just check the generated notes and tweak it a bit before moving onto something else.” 

“I think it’s quite amazing, I find myself spending time thinking of things I can leave up to AI,” says Anna Yeung, a student at Stanford Law School. Yeung is an advocate for integrating technology into every field. “There’s a lot of things AI can’t do that we can. We have better critical thinking skills, and ingenuity, thinking outside of the box are things we can’t program…yet!” She jokes, “I do think though that there’s a lot of things that we, not only can automate, but things we should automate.” Yeung says that she has experimented on using AI on tasks she expects to encounter in her future field of work.

“I think a lot of document drafting and doc review can be automated, especially doc review. Categorizing and determining if something is relevant to a case could easily be done using summarization algorithms.” Yeung says. “Of course, I don’t think the creativity and judgment needed to be a successful attorney can be replaced by an AI…they don’t do too well with ambiguity. I would never trust one to interpret something for me, but I would trust it to eliminate the busy work.” Yeung says.

“One day I want to specialize in patent law, so I’m not too worried about being ‘replaced’ by an AI. Intellectual property law requires a lot of subjective analysis…I could invent something and not even know how to describe what it does, or not even have the lexicon to describe it! AI would fall short there, but it could probably help me make it sound fancier...I think AI can’t replace us, but it definitely can enhance us and bring the gap between a good lawyer and a great lawyer even closer together.”

The Australian government has been employing AI for their Intellectual Property institution through their Cognitive Futures Strategy. Currently, they have tools that include Automated Preliminary Search, Patent Auto Classifier (PAC), and Outcome Based Directions. They can even use a handy automated Trademark Checker. It’s an exciting time to see the development of AI and its use in law.

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