Despite its initial flaws, attorneys should embrace ChatGPT

As the ADR industry continues to evolve in a post-COVID era, there is now an emerging technology that lawyers and arbitrators need to know about, and it is ChatGPT.

ChatGPT, launched last November, is an innovative artificial intelligence chatbot that is making major waves for its expedient research and discovery, e-discovery, and content writing ability. In essence, this powerful artificial intelligence (AI) tool interacts conversationally with humans so it can generate content based on prompts and answer questions posed by users. It is considered to be as easy as having a text conversation with a friend. Specifically, the "Chat" part of "ChatGPT" refers to it being a chatbot and the "GPT" stands for "Generative Pre-trained Transformer." A GPT is a language model that has been trained on a vast dataset of text to generate human-like text.

Since its inception, ChatGPT has garnered widespread attention and gained over a whopping one million users in the first five days. Many discussions have centered on its benefits and drawbacks involving a diverse range of stakeholders, including academics, politicians, students, business leaders, and policymakers. Microsoft Corp even integrated ChatGPT into its search engine, Bing, last February.

While lawyers and arbitrators have a huge opportunity to save time and energy on mundane tasks, allowing them to focus more on the legal aspects of their cases, ChatGPT is now sparking global controversy. Most recently, Italy banned the AI tool - becoming the world's first country to block the chatbot due to privacy concerns and a verified data breach. They argue that using ChatGPT for business purposes to analyze input confidential information, which may include private medical and banking information, constitutes a breach of data that is supposed to be protected by law.

Despite the risks, here is why you should get ahead of the curve and start experimenting with ChatGPT to step up your technology game:

• It is Free

Right now, anyone can use ChatGPT, and it is free of charge. All you need to do is go to chat.openai.com in a web browser on your computer, tablet, or smartphone and create an account. Due to the high demand, a new "ChatGPT Plus" subscription plan is now being offered for $20 per month, which includes more reliable availability, faster response speeds, and priority access to new features like plugins. As of now, there is not an official ChatGPT app for an Android or iPhone, but you can access ChatGPT in the browser on your phone.

• Increases Productivity

ChatGPT has the ability to streamline processes significantly. AI can go through documents in seconds and extract information from large amounts of text data. The model is great at pinpointing key topics, summarizing specific information, and gathering ideas from online data. It is an ideal tool for lawyers who need quick answers to legal questions and those who may be researching, writing documents, or managing e-discovery tasks. As a result, arbitrators can expect attorneys to increase output, leading to more efficient and effective arbitration processes.

• Stay Informed and Up to Date with Current Legal Trends

ChatGPT is an AI-powered virtual assistant that helps increase communication efficiency. It is trained on natural language processing to understand context and content and respond in real-time. Chat GPT can provide valuable insight into legal topics, helping lawyers to quickly digest complex information. Additionally, it can be used to streamline the e-discovery process by quickly and accurately identifying key documents and evidence.

• Achieve Greater Access to Justice

Artificial intelligence has the potential to reduce barriers to justice - most notably, the high cost of accessing legal help. By saving time on the legal grunt work, lawyers can reduce estimates and pass the savings onto their clients.

In conclusion, ChatGPT is a powerful technology tool and a rapidly growing field that has the potential to revolutionize our entire industry. Participants have the chance to seize the opportunity to be in the forefront of technology, increase productivity, and reduce costs. Unfortunately, ChatGPT and other generative AI tools are not error-proof and may reflect inherent biases in the datasets on which they are based. Therefore, those who use AI technology are responsible to ensure that their final work product is accurate. In addition, ChatGPT is not up to date on current events and the dataset of the current version of ChatGPT only goes up to 2021. Since the chatbot is still in its infancy, obviously many potential legal aspects have yet to be ironed out. Regardless, it is time for lawyers and arbitrators to start paying attention to ChatGPT before you get left behind.