Article: Could AI graduate from law school?

The Minnesota Lawyer writes…

Could AI graduate from law school?

Minnesota professors put ChatGPT to the test — and it gets a C+

In late 2022, four University of Minnesota Law School professors agreed to have artificial-intelligence-generated answers from ChatGPT mixed into their anonymous grading system.

The artificial intelligence (AI) bot generated answers that averaged a C+ in most courses — a passing grade.

The results were surprising for Fredrikson & Byron Professor of Law Dan Schwarcz, with the University of Minnesota Law School, and others, including NBC Nightly News and TaxProf Blog have shared the surprising results, too.

“I was very skeptical that [Chat GPT] was something that we had to worry about,” Schwarcz admitted. “But it’s really different, and it’s really made me rethink the issues.”

ChatGPT was released by OpenAI in November 2022. The buzz surrounding this artificial intelligence comes from its advanced ability to string together sentences. As such, ChatGPT has been able to create responses and essay answers that mimic human-generated responses, making the two indistinguishable at times.

Understandably, its programming has been alarming and a curiosity in academic circles — the impetus for the University of Minnesota Law School’s empirical study.

Schwarcz explained the release of ChatGPT sparked conversations among University of Minnesota Law School faculty. Schwarcz and three other faculty members, Jonathan Choi, Kristin Hickman, and Amy Monahan, agreed to have responses generated by ChatGPT randomly submitted among their students’ exams.

Because the school grades based on anonymity, Schwarcz explained this creates a less-biased assessment space.

What’s more, the questions on a law school exam are “really complicated fact patterns where an elaborate series of events can occur,” Schwarcz said. This would be a complicated test of ChatGPT’s skills.

And it passed.

“It’s not at the top or middle, but it is holding its own in terms of being able to produce reasonable answers to very difficult questions,” Schwarcz said.

An AI program “holding its own” at the University of Minnesota is an interesting feat. The average LSAT score by the school’s students ranges from 162-169 on a 180-point exam, and approximately 97% of its graduates pass the bar exam the first time.

Outside of the classroom, the rise of AI is causing potentially law-changing conversations in the courts.

Tom Cotter, an intellectual property and antitrust law expert with the University of Minnesota Law School, said there are currently two active cases challenging the notion of AI’s right to copyright and a person’s right to copyright from an AI-generated material.

Cotter is also the school’s Taft Stettinius & Hollister Professor of Law and the associate dean for research and planning.

In one case, Cotter explained, Richard Thaler is arguing that his AI program should be able to register as the owner of a piece it created since it did so autonomously.

The stance of the U.S. Copyright Office is that works can be copyrighted only to a human, not a machine, Cotter explained.

In another instance, Thaler is arguing that while AI is the author, he would be the owner.

“Is it possible for the creator of the program or the user of the program to claim ownership?” Cotter asked. “Again, we will have to see how that issue will resolve itself over time.”

Other issues may include trademark infringement or unfair competition, but Cotter emphasized that all of these issues surrounding AI are in the early stages and do not come with predictable outcomes. Fair-use laws are currently seen as applicable when AI uses copyright work that is available online, Cotter explained.

Cotter added that while there are academic concerns related to the use of AI in the classroom, there are no legal issues that he could foresee. Furthermore, he said AI could be useful in the drafting phases of writing for students.

Similarly, Schwarcz believes there is a future for AI in legal work and the classroom.

“We can’t just move to a new reality to say ‘We’re going to ban this,’” Schwarcz said. “The practice of law is changing.”

Schwarcz explained conversations surrounding the use of AI at the University of Minnesota School of Law are currently underway. The current philosophy is that its use in the classroom may up to a professor’s discretion.

No official statement, stance, or plan for using AI has been released by the university.

However, Schwarcz said, the opportunity for technology to become more advanced and useful is there. For instance, Schwarcz explained ChatGPT isn’t familiar with legal texts, but if it ever becomes familiar, this could change the impact of the tool.

Regardless, shying away from its use or banning it in the classroom is not something Schwarcz believes should happen.

“I think we can’t hide from the future,” Schwarcz said.

Source:  https://minnlawyer.com/2023/02/22/could-ai-graduate-from-law-school/