The Geek In Review

Deploying Cutting-Edge Legal AI: Travers Smith's Cautious, But Open-source Approach. (TGIR Ep. 216)

Aug 22, 2023

01:05:57

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Hosts interview Travers Smith's CTO, Director of Legal Tech, and AI Manager. They discuss Travers Smith's cautious approach to deploying cutting-edge legal AI, focusing on generative models, reasoning applications, and document analysis. Travers Smith open sourced their generative AI chatbot to promote responsible AI adoption. The team prioritizes model safety, minimizing subtle errors and hallucination risks. They foresee AI transforming tasks like contract review but not work product. Guests also discuss the challenges and future vision of AI in the legal field.

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Quick takeaways

Travers Smith is cautious about using generative AI for legal advice due to the risk of hallucination and copyright issues.

Travers Smith emphasizes the importance of structuring prompts effectively to improve the usefulness of AI tools.

Being model-agnostic is crucial for successful implementation of AI models in the legal industry to mitigate reliance on a single model.

Deep dives

Obstacles in Using Generative AI Tools

One of the obstacles in accurately conducting legal work with generative AI tools is the risk of hallucination and copyright issues. The content generated by these tools may be inaccurate or contain copyrighted material. Therefore, Traversmith is cautious about using generative AI for legal advice. Another challenge is the need to balance the legal aspect with the computational aspects of the models. Structuring prompts to get the desired output requires a combination of legal and computer science knowledge. These obstacles have led Traversmith to focus more on extractive AI and reasoning capabilities of the models, which offer value and require less risk.

The Complexities of Using AI Tools in Summarizing Legal Information

00:41

The Risks of Hallucination in Generated Common Law and Case Law

00:49

Introduction

2min

Reflections on the Impact of Technology in the Legal Profession

8min

AI Manager: Managing Artificial Intelligence within the Firm

19min

Risks of Subtle Errors in AI-generated Common Law

6min

Resolving the Hallucination Problem

18min

Ownership of the Law and the Impact of AI Algorithms

2min

Future Vision for Developing and Testing the YCN Bot

4min

The Future of AI in the Legal Field

5min

In this episode of The Geek in Review, hosts Greg Lambert and Marlene Gebauer interview three guests from UK law firm Travers Smith about their work on AI: Chief Technology Officer Oliver Bethel, Director of Legal Technology Sean Curran, and AI Manager Sam Lansley. They discuss Travers Smith's approach to testing and applying AI tools like generative models.

A key focus is finding ways to safely leverage AI while mitigating risks like copyright issues and hallucination. Travers Smith built an internal chatbot called YCNbot to experiment with generative AI through secure enterprise APIs. They are being cautious on the generative side but see more revolutionary impact from reasoning applications like analyzing documents.

Travers Smith has open sourced tools like YCNbot to spur responsible AI adoption. Collaboration with 273 Ventures helped build in multi-model support. The team is working on reducing dependence on manual prompting and increasing document analysis capabilities. They aim to be model-agnostic to hedge against reliance on a single vendor.

On model safety, Travers Smith emphasizes training data legitimacy, multi-model flexibility, and probing hallucination risks. They co-authored a paper on subtle errors in legal AI. Dedicated roles like prompt engineers are emerging to interface between law and technology. Travers Smith is exploring AI for tasks like contract review but not yet for work product.

When asked about the crystal ball for legal AI, the guests predicted the need for equitable distribution of benefits, growth in reasoning applications vs. generative ones, and movement toward more autonomous agents over manual prompting. Info providers may gain power over intermediaries applying their data.

This wide-ranging discussion provides an inside look at how one forward-thinking firm is advancing legal AI in a prudent and ethical manner. With an open source mindset, Travers Smith is exploring boundaries and sharing solutions to propel the responsible use of emerging technologies in law.

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Contact Us:

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
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Voicemail: 713-487-7821 Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠Transcript

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The Geek In Review

Deploying Cutting-Edge Legal AI: Travers Smith's Cautious, But Open-source Approach. (TGIR Ep. 216)

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Deep dives

Obstacles in Using Generative AI Tools

Collaboration with 273 Ventures on YCN Bot

Ensuring Safety and Ethics in AI Experimentation

Suggestions for Legal Information Vendors

The Importance of Being Model-Agnostic in AI Adoption

The Open Source Future of AI in Law and Potential Ownership Issues

The Complexities of Using AI Tools in Summarizing Legal Information

The Risks of Hallucination in Generated Common Law and Case Law

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The Geek In Review

Deploying Cutting-Edge Legal AI: Travers Smith's Cautious, But Open-source Approach. (TGIR Ep. 216)

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Deep dives

Obstacles in Using Generative AI Tools

Collaboration with 273 Ventures on YCN Bot

Ensuring Safety and Ethics in AI Experimentation

Suggestions for Legal Information Vendors

The Importance of Being Model-Agnostic in AI Adoption

The Open Source Future of AI in Law and Potential Ownership Issues

The Complexities of Using AI Tools in Summarizing Legal Information

The Risks of Hallucination in Generated Common Law and Case Law

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