Artificial Intelligence

What is Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI)?

Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that enables machines to create images, music, video or text on their own, without being explicitly programmed to create any given output. The system is trained on a large dataset of examples, and it can generate new examples that are similar to the ones it was trained on.

Court Guidelines

It is common to hear the statement that 'AI is everywhere in real life, so we need to use it at University.' However, it is important to understand the existing guidelines and rules that apply to the legal profession.

The Supreme Court of Victoria and the Count Court of Victoria have established identical practice guidelines for use of generative AI by litigants (including their legal representatives). You should read these guidelines in their entirety, however a key element from Principle 8 is extracted here:

Generative AI and Large Language Models create output that is not the product of reasoning. Nor are they a legal research tool. They use probability to predict a given sequence of words. ... Generative AI does not relieve the responsible legal practitioner of the need to exercise judgment and professional skill in reviewing the final product to be provided to the Court.

Misuse of generative AI by members of the Victorian legal profession has resulted in referrals to the Legal Services Commissioner for further investigation and possible discipline.

Other potential issues

Also keep in mind the following:

• Potential for bias in large language models (generative AI) as it has ingested biased materials.
• The material on which many large language models is built has been ingested without consent and without compensation to its creators. This has particular implications for Indigenous knowledges and understandings that have been ingested without consent.
• Providing material to a generative AI program means that material will likely be included in its ongoing training material. Multiple serious breach of privacy law have resulted from the use of generative AI.

Implications for legal research

• Use of a large language model is not legal research. It outputs a sequence of words based on prediction.
• As more material created by generative AI is published on the internet, it will show up in results in search engines such as Google and Bing, especially as the companies behind Google and Bing encourage the use of their generative AI tools. Google and Bing will become even less useful for legal research than they are now.
• As legal databases incorporate generative AI it will be more and more important that you understand how those databases work, what the generative AI is doing, and what risks you are taking by using their generative AI features.

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