a modest proposal for ai + law: it's time for "hippie harvey"

changing the law forever, by arranging successful + fruitful marriages of two opposites attracting, to create the beautiful for humankind in organic components, and to free ai in the law

what’s the difference between a lawyer and a developer?

one works very late hours, drinks tons of diet coke, dresses down to focus on grinding to produce what is esoteric to many, but the right build for the right application. the other is a developer.

we think of them as so different usually and they don’t always get along well. and yet there is an affinity between developers and lawyers, in personality and temperament, despite their distinctions, almost like oil and vinegar. naturally separated — each essential in its own character and field — but i think here and now together a beautiful collaboration needed.

and it may be strictly necessary for peace at least in the commercial and data spaces. as i have written before, there is a war ongoing between the lawyers and the developers, with battles certain in the future.

at the same time, the world is beginning to see the threads on institutionalized #AI, both in its gaps and in its limitations and increasingly in its (imagined) “dangers.” this no more so true than in the ai + legal space.

to an extent, #law may be the slowest migrating profession the world has ever known. and with good reason. harvard business school once called the modern law firm the “most successful profit center in history.” it seems to be the case.

and yet a goodly portion of the recently reigning model of law has been built upon certain modes and conventions:

• commercial real estate, office views, and corresponding debt,

• ‘conventions of finery’ (the tassled loafers which distinguish, the Bottega Veneta intrecciato leather valise to stylistically game, the wining and dining and ‘white glove treatment’ to impress clients),

• perfected and honed irl physical expertise down to the gesture/inflection/motion in physical spaces like courtrooms and boardrooms (“welcome to the 16” zoom screen, counselor!”),

• restriction (reservation) of information and expertise from client in sole or primary possession of lawyer only, and

• the billable hour and cost structures built thereupon, which *can* result in an arbitrage of interests between lawyer and client (with the one maximizing while other valiantly tries minimization)

…each and all of these are presently at risk in a post-pandemic change-era. under pressure from economic circumstances and sanitary and virtual and value and large urban changes during these past years and perhaps now and going forward the ai law change-era will still yet continue to grind, whatever.

by contract and speaking of grinding, developers have long been the chosen engines of dislodgement, disruption - civilizational migration since clocks, since television, since the Internet, then apps, now bots…

developers and technology will take the practice of law along with them for a ride whether they like it or not as ai transforms consumption and exercise of our data (law is data) in this new “age of data”. kicking, screaming, fighting. recriminations via suggested and nebulous dark future paradigms as yet known, except just known to be feared and regulated ab initio or functionally or practically regulated into approved corporate and product-privatization silo neighborhoods — the googleization of ai — the o-g ‘only’ gpt (til it goes offline, or just loses its llmind).

did somebody say war?

so it will be war, or else it will be a beautiful marriage. fear of ai dangers, in the law or otherwise, especially the mythical dangers (suggested inchoate ones), must not formally (to the extent we can help it) halt our hand in growing technologically. and why not choose love over war?

i’m an effective accelerationist (#e/acc) so far as ai + law is concerned. i’m a non technical (even though I consider the law to be plenty technical) builder. (not sure these are ‘having it’) it is in part because personally, i see the great promise to make the law which i love and have devoted my career to even greater and more professional, delivering more while asking less of the individual, less showtime and more go time, ensuring greater access to justice (#a2j) for all, allergically eschewing new built big box technical structures of ‘law walls,’ instead of the bridges they told us we are supposed to be building.

as a thought-cousin-the-lawyer mini-tentril inspired by the historic Techno-Optimist Manifesto by Marc Andreessen, its time to be build-biased in ai + law [and especially for the law] as it provides for the critical tools for the next stages of development for the practice and the good of mankind.

if one can argue that ai-science or ai-socialmedia or ai-video content should not be restricted-access to the public, how much more is this so in the law (that institution which gives life-blood to freedom and critical knowledge for humankind)?

ignorance of the law may be no excuse. yet ignorance of the law gets more expensive compared to even lawyer fees, and on the least who can sometimes afford it, have you seen?

lawyers please don’t gripe. we are decades now beyond civilization’s acceptance of “internet medicine” from webmd/medscape … and here there are no bodies. law, it is time.

so here is a modest proposal for ai + law in these sentiments, and along these lines -

let us build “hippie harvey” =

• 10000 devs + 10000 lawyers (a good start); each joined into must-be two person teams, localized to need and interest, for small builds, and to qa their respective disciplines together to ensure ux, reliability of information, and functionality/helpfulness of the tech, a start [organic - a technical woodstock, just need the woodstock]

• guerillai builds everywhere anywhere in the world under guidance/support,

• just singular lawbots for discrete subject silos (divorce in michigan, capital raise in singapore, public benefits in uniquely multi-pluralist-law canada, did you know uk and usa law is often used to supplement canadian law?), small is the new big, discrete topics are best - just the gist of a particular area

• don’t throw the whole internet into it, or a giantly massive llm w so much noise. build in a less-is-more-alignment (lima) orientation (#slm, not llm). its amazing what comprehensive meaning can be refined collected and delivered simply w fewer inputs (less prompt or other “training” ug also). it is done each year with lawyers’ bar examination prep (i still have my outlines).

• open source and just use the platform that the particular +developer is most proficient with - best built according to their competence

• working w the area of law in which the +lawyer is most proficient

• employment for developers, and to build out (expand) the technology class of ai

• new employment opportunities for lawyers, new training, and modes of communication + delivery of skill + insights and sharing for the public benefit

• create new beautiful educational tools in the law

• 1m mini “retail law schools” “nano law schools”

• brought together in one place “a dating service for robots”

• a brand new law ai ecosystem with new job descriptions, applications, and use cases

• [* not a substitute for a legal representation, educational only]

• [yet very nearly, if not certainly, it seems like a professional and/or even patriotic or lawyer-citizen duty to pro bono help in the conveyance of law to the public at large through newly available means]

• growing mankind’s knowledge and understanding of the law

• it will sharpen lawyers

• serving the cause of law - that institution which is singularly freeing, confining, and empowering, and

• which will lead to the adaptation and advancement of the law overall in both law and ai technologies, product and whole new companies/industries/job roles development, growing of technical and legal human skill and learning, acceleration of critical human knowledge across the board; projects, people, patrons, enterprises - humankind

law has always been the sole institution to perform the function of unlocking and enabling human action and overcoming differences, prejudice, and injustice; protecting us

wouldn’t more access to law be better?
isn’t this really a professional responsibility as well?

does this sound interesting? we owe the past and the future. its time to build.

ps - asked krea prompt “hippie robot” and this is what you get for now i suppose