CodeX, The Stanford Center for Legal Informatics

Honored to give an opening lecture at University of Cambridge for their inaugural LLM x Law Hackathon last weekend, hosted by King's Entrepreneurship Lab. 150 participants representing 28 universities world-wide aimed to learn and build disruptive legal solutions using generative AI. Here’s a recap and impressions on the hackathon. First, a few insights I shared to the audience of coders, lawyers, business folks and entrepreneurs: 1. Build toward the future of LLMs Build products that anticipate 10x improvements on models performance, cost, and risk mitigation (against hallucinations and more) in the next 1-2 years. Need to get ahead of the breakneck speed of innovation in this field, or become stale. 2. UX will be the next accelerator UX (user’s overall experience and interaction with products) has sorely lagged in LLMs. Improvements in this area would drastically accelerate usage/adoption. I shared thoughts on likely acceleration areas in UX, drawn from Dr. Megan Ma and my research at Stanford Law School - see link is in the comments below. 3. No sacred cows in legal Dispelled common myths as to why we can’t innovate in the legal space (too bespoke, insurmountable hurdles from legal industry, to name a few). I implored everyone to innovate with abandon. The aim would be to pursue delivery of legal services to and by stakeholders in an accessible, transparent and efficient manner. Then, the hallways of King’s College at Cambridge were teeming with entrepreneurial hackers and frenetic coding. I spoke with and traded ideas with dozens of participants. Was impressed by the focused energy and unbridled passion. The final generative AI-driven startup solutions were ambitious and wide-ranging: generative AI legal answers for users annotated by lawyers, multimodal analysis of documents/evidence to determine the strength of potential legal claims, volume contract obligation management for buyers and suppliers, optimized legal contract reviews and ediscovery, and many more. Stepping back, we are still at the ground floor for legal innovation using LLMs/generative AI. The next generation of disruptors and startups are being born today. King’s College joined us at Stanford Law School in staking claim as the next great hub for legal x LLM innovation. Who’s got next? All of us are ready to support you. Special thanks to the amazing and gracious organizers Kamiar Mohaddes, Annika Iyengar Zarja Hude, Mahika Popli and others. It was also a pleasure to represent CodeX, The Stanford Center for Legal Informatics — alongside my distinguished colleagues Dr. Megan Ma , Harry Surden, and Pierre-Loic Doulcet — as collaborators in this event.

Great start to our 21st Annual Stanford Digital Economy Best Practices conference today with my fellow organizers Mark Lemley, Ian Ballon and Bill Cosden! #Stanford Digital Economy Best Practices #techlaw #digitaleconomy #genAI Learn more about the conference here: https://lnkd.in/g2M29QCw

We’re thrilled to share insights from Dr. Megan Ma, Associate Director at CodeX, The Stanford Center for Legal Informatics, on how #GenAI is transforming legal education and lawyer training. 🎓🤖 Catch the full interview from Artificial Lawyer, and get inspired by how #AI is shaping the future of legal practice: https://lnkd.in/dJZkNyPw Don’t miss the chance to hear from thought leaders like Dr. Ma and network with pioneering legal tech companies - join us at the Legal Innovators California conference on June 4th - 5th in San Francisco! 🎟️ Tickets are still available! Secure your spot and be part of this transformative event: https://lnkd.in/eMqvvptS Let’s embrace the future of law together! Richard Tromans | Artificial Lawyer | Redactable® | Steno | SimpleDocs | Relativity | Gravity Stack LLC | Tangible Global | LegalOn Technologies | Jus Mundi | Clearbrief.ai | Flatiron Law Group| ClearyX | SkillBurst Interactive | DWF | eBrevia | Etain | LawDroid - Generative AI Legal Technology | Abstract | Coheso | Recital | FOSSA | Incorporight Inc. | Avvoka | SimpleClosure | Centari | CallidusAI | Clearbrief.ai | Ivo | UnitedLex | Harvey | International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) | Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists (ACEDS) | Law Insider | ALM #legalinnovatorscalifornia #LegalInnovation #LegalTech #LawTechConference #LegalDisruption #LegalTechSolutions #sanfransicoevents #legalevents #legalinnovators #LegalInsights #TechInLaw

As a professional working at the intersection of legal and tech, how do you stay up to speed and navigate these new challenges and opportunities? Join us for this year's Stanford Digital Economy Best Practices next week on June 10! Stanford Digital Economy Best Practices is "the premier educational event for in-house counsel and practitioners who work in tech. Leading experts from industry, legal practice and academia will address current issues facing the industry and offer practical solutions for dealing with the many legal uncertainties that arise when doing business online." Learn more and register: https://lnkd.in/giA_KR4q

OpenAI’s use of a voice similar to Scarlett Johansson for its ChatGPT is creepy. Not just because they did so even though she reportedly declined their offer to lend her voice to ChatGPT (that’s bad enough), but because of why they did it. To understand the “why” we need to look at how computers and humans interact. Now, the power of technology to persuade people is well documented. In his seminal work on the topic, Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What we Think and Do, Stanford Professor B.J. Fogg laid out how computers are capable of creating relationships with humans through rewards and positive feedback. Now bundle that together with Professor Daniel C. Dennett’s observation in his book Kinds of Minds: Toward and Understanding of Consciousness that “we treat [computers] as they were just like us” and it becomes clear that humans form strong bonds with computers. Are you starting to see what OpenAI was up to with Scarlett Johansson’s likeness? Ok, so now let’s bring in AI. Pretty much any time AI is introduced into a computational platform, the platform’s persuasive capabilities tend to be significantly magnified. It is even more so when the AI system uses a highly recognizable voice. OpenAI’s move here was not simply to make its ChatGPT more likable, more user friendly. It was to make it more persuasive; that’s why they did it. This is problematic because the likelihood of emotional entanglement dramatically increases and the attendant risks to the end user. And it’s even more problematic because OpenAI’s move is misaligned with the Human-Centeredand Governance core principles, which puts their decision on a collision course with the NIST AI Risk Management Framework. https://lnkd.in/gmu5PAtS

Ahead of the Legal Innovators California conference on June 4 and 5, Artificial Lawyer spoke to Dr. Megan Ma, Associate Director at CodeX within Stanford Law School, about how she and her colleagues are exploring how genAI can be used to help with legal education and lawyer training. In this AL TV video we also consider the wider impact of genAI on the law and why Dr Ma is looking forward to taking part in the two-day conference in San Francisco next week - on June 4 and 5 in SF. Link: https://lnkd.in/dYWrEan9 #legaltech #genAI #legaleducation #lawyertraining HT Timo Karakashev Suditi Sinha Alexandria Cordova, LL.M. Rosy Nguyen

Stanford students on a Stanford Law CodeX Hackathon team created an AI tool to simplify the process for veterans applying for disability benefits. The process of filing for disability benefits can often be challenging and long, but this AI chatbot makes the process easier by asking veterans to identify where they are hurt and to describe what happened to them. AI then takes that information and turns it into "VA-acceptable" language. Learn more about this AI tool on a recent NPR Morning Edition episode. https://lnkd.in/g_TDE3Nr

Flatiron Law Group collaborated with CodeX, the Stanford Center for Legal Informatics, and a team of AI engineers from KAUST (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology), to develop a ground-breaking M&A negotiation simulator that uses Generative AI to allow young lawyers to negotiate an M&A LOI with a virtual “agent”. The alpha version of the simulator was introduced by Dr. Megan Ma, the Associate Director of CodeX, at the CodeX Future of Law Conference. See a Demo of M&A Negotiating Simulator here https://lnkd.in/gvGwzc_t #M&A,#generativeai,#flatironlawgroup

How long does it take to conceive and roll out a groundbreaking AI tool? About 48 hours, at least at the recent CodeX Hackathon, where two SLS students were part of winning teams. Read the Stanford Law Magazine story: https://lnkd.in/gdCRGbKY

Read our latest student blog post on the Promise and Privacy Concerns of Retrieval Augmentation Generation by Andrew Dang https://lnkd.in/g4sXDQgg