ChatGPT and the law: a useful but imperfect tool

Generative artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT raise questions about how it can be used and controlled in the field of law, say two UdeM professors. AI content generators like ChatGPT will never replace lawyers and judges, but they're increasingly being used in the legal field. There's already a lot of excitement about what these tools can do in terms of interpreting the law, providing access to justice and education about legal matters, writing contracts and legal documents, offering legal aid, supporting decision-making, and facilitating lawyer-client communications. But the arrival of ChatGPT and applications that work with it have raised two kinds of questions about how to control and use it, according to professors Nicolas Vermeys and Karim Benyekhlef of Université de Montréal's Faculty of Law. Dependent on jurisdiction and territory. Credit: Karim Benyekhlef (Christian Fleury) and Nicolas Vermeys (Centre de recherche en droit public( The first issue, according to Vermeys, is that unlike medicine or other scientific fields, the law is a discipline that applies to a specific region or territory. "For example, Canadian criminal law only applies within Canada, just like Quebec's civil law only applies within Quebec," he said.