The first wave of legal tech in the 1980s and 90s was in many ways firmly rooted in a 'formal-rational' conception of the law that emphasised its logical and rule based nature. While never as disruptive of the justice system as some had anticipated, it still impacted profoundly on the way modern bureaucracies operate. The current generation of AI, large Language Models and generative AI. Yet its impact on the legal profession, for better or worse, seems currently more noticeable than any of its predecessors. The lecture will use Weber’s concept of a 'Rechtshonoratioren' to unpack some of the discussion surrounding the use of generative AI by lawyers, contrasting old and new legal AI, and interrogating the possible implication for the function and legitimacy of the justice system. Could deskilling lead to a legal system without legal dignitaries? Or will future AIs seamlessly occupy the role that Weber attributed to professional lawyers? Will legal disputes of the future be adjudicated by a 'wise old LatinAI' , or do we face the dystopian world of the Demolition Man?
Speaker:
Burkhard Schafer is Professor for Computational Legal Theory and was from 2010-2021 Director of the SCRIPT center for IT and IP law. He is also an affiliated member of the ACE Centre for Cyber Security at the School of Informatics at Edinburgh. He holds degrees in logic, philosophy, computer linguistics and law from the University of Munich and the University of Lancaster. His main field of research is the interface between computer technology, science and the law. He has published more than 120 papers in the field of legal expert system design, the semantic web, and on legal responses to new technologies from a comparative perspective. He held visiting positions at the universities of Sao Paolo, Graz and Grenoble. He was chair of the Legal informatics working group of the German Gesellschaft fuer Informatik and is currently the chair of the 'Legal services' expert group of AI4People. He served as member of the 'New technologies in policing' and the 'Digital Ethical Scotland' expert groups of the Scottish Government, and the data ethics group of the UK Cabinet Office. He is also member of the accreditation panel for legal technologists of the Law Society of Scotland.