Artificial intelligence systems can improve the legal system, according to West Virginia University College of Law lecturer Amy Cyphert, but she cautions such systems come with flaws that can provide errors and biases, which may present potentially unjust legal ramifications.
(WVU Photo)
Artificial
intelligence systems can improve the legal system, according to a West Virginia
University College of
Law lecturer. But Amy Cyphert cautions such systems come with flaws that
can provide errors and biases, which may present potentially unjust legal
ramifications.
Cyphert, who also directs the WVU
ASPIRE Office, will be speaking
at the West Virginia Press Association Convention on Saturday
(Aug. 12) in Charleston. Her session,
“Artificial intelligence, ethics and its implications for
communications,” will focus on AI’s potential impact on media and
communications.
Cyphert has been writing law review articles and
teaching law classes on AI and its ethical implications since 2020. Along with
communications, she sees risks and benefits of relying on AI for practicing law
and can address the importance of understanding it as a tool.
Quotes:
“People may not realize that
artificial intelligence is in use in lots of the systems around them. AI tools
are used by private companies for things like determining who gets a mortgage
or who gets hired. Then there are some high-profile examples of artificial
intelligence tools that are used in the criminal justice sector, like image
recognition software. And AI
tools can actually have an impact on who might go to jail and for how long. There
are recidivism prediction tools that are relying on certain AI systems.
“Machine learning systems are only as good as
the data they are trained on. The computer science concept is ‘garbage in,
garbage out,’ which means if you’ve got data that’s flawed, whatever output it
produces is going to be flawed. In law, and especially in the field of
artificial intelligence and law, scholars say, ‘bias in, bias out.’ A system designed
to predict how likely someone is to reoffend may have been trained on biased
historical criminal justice data.
“There is also potential
promise in the use of AI tools like ChatGPT to help lawyers reduce costs by
drafting motions and other legal documents more quickly. Lawyers use artificial
intelligence for things like electronic discovery and for determining what
electronically stored information might be discoverable in a civil case. Someone
has to pull all those documents from 30 years ago out of the filing cabinet and
put them into boxes and give them to the other side. Then on that side, someone
has to look at each of them and decide if they’re important. AI tools can help
both sides.
“The devil is in the
details with how lawyers use these tools. Those who don’t understand the
technology may use it anyway and that could be detrimental to their clients.
Lawyers have an obligation to save their clients money, so if you can use an AI
tool that makes your case stronger and cheaper for your client, you should
absolutely use it. But you have to understand the tool. If you don’t and you
accidentally make the client’s case weaker, that’s problematic.” — Amy
Cyphert, lecturer, WVU College of Law
West Virginia University experts can provide commentary,
insights and opinions on various news topics. Search for an
expert by name, title, areas of expertise or college/school/department in
the Experts Database at WVUToday.
-WVU-
lr/8/8/23
MEDIA CONTACT: Jake
Stump
Director
WVU Research Communications
304-293-5507; [email protected]
Call 1-855-WVU-NEWS for
the latest West Virginia University news and information from WVUToday.
