These days you can no longer avoid it… Artificial Intelligence (AI) is seen as the solution for efficient working, but there are also dangers. The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union therefore very recently, on 9 December 2023, reached a provisional political agreement on a number of conditions for AI use, throughout the entire European Union.* The aim is to arrive at a directly applicable AI Regulation (as with the GDPR). Meanwhile, ChatGPT is advancing like a kind of oracle.
ChatGPT, the legal oracle?
Is it an oracle that answers all your questions, including legal ones? ChatGPT is in particular a Large Language Model (LLM). And do not forget that ChatGPT above all remains computing power and search power, a generator of text based on what you input and ask.** It explains nothing and interprets nothing. Not even when you present it with the facts of your legal problem. And if you then ask the wrong legal question, you also get the wrong text. You do not get advice.
Can ChatGPT replace consulting a lawyer? Here’s a spoiler already: garbage in, garbage out — chatbots cannot do everything.
Where does it go wrong if you give ChatGPT an assignment to draw up general terms and conditions?
As an advisor, you are looking for suitable general terms and conditions for your client who sells cosmetic products online. You then enter this assignment into ChatGPT 3.5 (hereinafter ‘ChatGPT’): “Draft general terms and conditions for a cosmetics company”.
However, you forget to mention that the company only sells these products to consumers and does not sell products to other businesses (wholesale).
As a result, the output from ChatGPT contains many provisions that appear on the black and grey lists, making the terms and conditions legally invalid. For example, you then lose a case in which you charged collection costs to a consumer who ordered a great deal but did not pay. This despite the fact that you acted entirely in accordance with the collection clause in your general terms and conditions. See our blog on this.
Another pitfall: ChatGPT has “predicted” in the generated general terms and conditions that orders can be placed via the cosmetics company’s online store. This while you did not mention this when entering the assignment. However, there are quite a few additional rules for webshop owners. Unfortunately, these rules cannot be found in the output from ChatGPT.
How reliable is the legal information on ChatGPT?
Furthermore, it is a risk that ChatGPT’s knowledge database in the field of lawsuits and legal matters was, until a few months ago, still based on information available up to 2021. In the meantime, ChatGPT states that there is no access to current information or specific cases after the last training date in January 2022. ChatGPT itself therefore issues a warning that one should take into account the fact that laws and legal practices can change. That it is always advisable to obtain the most recent and local information from a qualified legal professional or official sources.
Cheap is expensive — a ChatGPT lawyer for $20 a month?
Companies generally use these tools to speed up work and make it cheaper. For $20 a month, one can already gain access to the extended version of ChatGPT. As a result, there are companies that think they do not need HR staff or lawyers, because they have ChatGPT do that work. Frederik Deutman, founder of fund manager SevenGen Investment Partners, states in an article in the FD that he no longer needs a lawyer.*** This is because ChatGPT produces a formal report of the minutes of board meetings. However, this is fundamentally not the work of a lawyer but of a minute-taker or an executive assistant.
Especially in the legal field, it is necessary that all information provided by ChatGPT be checked. So how do we do that?
The working method of a (real) TLC lawyer
Of course, as TLC lawyers, we embrace advancing technology where it offers an advantage for our clients. That is why we have long made use of specialized legal search engines, such as Kluwer Navigator. This is a legal search engine that is up to date in terms of legal legislation and regulations, case law, etc. We also simply work with a statute book and Google.
The difference is that we know exactly which questions to ask, because we can qualify from the facts what the legally relevant question is that needs to be asked. We oversee the entire legal playing field.
That will be no different on Kluwer Navigator, Google, or with ChatGPT, and you will need to know exactly how to search. For this, through our professional association NEVOA, we even received special training to retrieve the correct legal information from reliable sources on Google, which is also an open source.
You need to be able to enter the right terms and search terms. That is only possible if you have search skills and deeper knowledge of the legal subject matter. You also need to know which facts are and are not important in a case. A client is sometimes emotionally involved and then does not see what is and is not relevant.
A lawyer creates new templates and solutions based on new legislation and case law
Like every lawyer, we also use our own models and templates, which we have been developing and continuously adapting to new legislation and collective labor agreements (CAOs) etc. for years. We also do this in collaboration with highly specialized subject-matter lawyers, such as professors.
One example is that we have to draft a fixed-term employment contract for a client. We then work with our own template, which is standard for both indefinite and fixed-term contracts. We then convert it into a specific fixed-term contract that precisely matches that particular employee. We ensure that the correct choices are made in the template so that no void provisions are included.
Tailor-made work is and remains advisory and precision work. Recently we had to take on a file because a client had themselves signed a 6-month fixed-term contract with an employee and had included a probationary period in it. That is void (only allowed if the duration is longer than 6 months), with the result that the employee did not accept the probationary-period dismissal. A chatbot such as ChatGPT cannot prevent this if you do not ask it the right question.
In addition, as NEVOA (Nederlandse Vereniging Ondernemingsrecht Adviseurs) lawyers, we keep learning throughout our lives to keep our knowledge up to date. Every year we follow all kinds of substantive legal training courses. In these, we learn about new rules, how to interpret them and also how to advise on them. That is something these tools cannot do.
Can ChatGPT replace your lawyer?
In short, ChatGPT cannot replace your lawyer, but it can possibly do simple secretarial and marketing work. These tools do now help us as lawyers to do our work more efficiently. That is why we use smart legal search engines. But ChatGPT is not a tool that we use in our practice. Not even for writing this blog. For that, we use the sources we consider reliable, and we use our own practical experience, not what ChatGPT makes up for us.
Before such tools can generate reliable texts and models, such applications will certainly still need to be developed further for decades. Whether they will then be affordable for SMEs is also questionable. We will of course continue to keep an eye on developments!
Do you have legal questions about this technology? Feel free to ask the TLC lawyer. Don’t worry, we will really answer your question personally and will not use a chatbot such as ChatGPT!
You can contact us by emailing info@thelegalcompany.nl or calling 020 345 0152.
*European Parliament, ‘Artificial Intelligence Act: deal on comprehensive rules for trustworthy AI’, 9 December 2023.
and
Council of the European Union, ‘Artificial intelligence Act: Council and Parliament strike a deal on the first rules for AI in the world’, 9 December 2023.
**Financieel Dagblad, “AI revolution mainly affects the highly educated”, 7 December 2023.
***Financieel Dagblad, ‘One year of ChatGPT has “transformed working life”‘, 24 November 2023.
Nothing is as changeable as legislation and regulation. Please note that our blogs may no longer align with current legislation and regulations and may therefore be outdated. If you have questions or a problem relating to this blog, or if you require legal assistance, please contact us.
