Lawyers have long relied on technology for help. However, there has been no evidence until now that technology would take over attorneys’ thinking and working. That is changing with the ushering of artificial intelligence into the realm of the written word. In late November 2022, OpenAI, one of the world’s forefront AI companies, unveiled its latest creation. It is a software model that can formulate text based on learned knowledge almost as well as the best university professor of any faculty. Or all faculties combined. In 95 or more languages. Its name is ChatGPT 3.5.
The development of the Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) started in 2015 when its creators at OpenAI wrote the code based on which GPT works. Over the next few years, the model was learning from so-called training data. Teaching this AI (artificial intelligence) model the desired skills consisted of providing it with “fodder”, a kind of intellectual diet that the AI memorized and then used in a context. The data fed to GPT came from nowhere other than the content of the Internet. The timeframe for this data package intended for pre-training GPT ended in 2021.
The aforementioned source of information which served as fodder for GPT presents a knotty problem. GPT generates its answers primarily from data gathered from the best known and most visited website, i.e., Google. That way, Google inadvertently handed OpenAI a loaded gun because, as the ongoing conflict between the two companies demonstrates, Google has realized that ChatGPT is technologically a step ahead. In the first week alone, OpenAI reported activity from over a million users, with a goal of attracting 1 billion by the end of 2023. While GPT cannot draw on actual data, it can completely deliver on the wishes of the principal. Google is merely capable of searching for a solution, and then the principal may choose from the searched sources. GPT has therefore “cut out the middleman”, so to speak.
