Lawyers and conveyancers face constant battle to keep up with AI

PROPERTY lawyers need to constantly hone Artificial Intelligence skills as platforms make fundamental updates on an almost monthly basis.

That’s the view of Gilbert + Tobin partner Michael Williams who spoke about the staggering pace of change at an industry forum in Sydney.

Taking a short break of just a few weeks will leave lawyers needing to retrain in the best ways to utilise the ever-evolving Large Language Models (LLM), he told the InfoTrack event.

“If I’m away from the office for a couple of weeks – at an international conference – I would come back and the interface has changed, the agents built into the interface have changed,” he said.

“I actually have to retrain on the latest technology so that I know how to use it four weeks later.

“There is nothing in my career that I’ve seen that comes even close to that degree of technological advancement.”

Ongoing training is a necessity, he said, adding: “It’s not enough to say I did some Excel training or I did some Microsoft specific training.

“You’re actually going to have to be in an ongoing process of training around these tools because you can only get the benefit out of the tools if you know how to use them well.”

It was a sentiment touched on by futurist Steve Sammartino, who urged delegates to experiment with Artificial Intelligence in his opening keynote speech at the event.

Likening training to use the rapidly-evolving AI platforms to walking through fog, he said: “You actually can’t see the future with tech. You can’t see it.

“But it’s like fog. If you walk into the fog 50 feet, guess what? You can see a further. 50 feet. Technology is like that. You’ve got to walk into it.

“Then you’ll see how it works and how it’s used. You can wait for the fog to clear, and a lot of companies and industries and businesses have, but if you wait for it to clear, those who walk are way further ahead than you.”

The messages come as the foreign minister warned that the rise of artificial intelligence could potentially endanger the world if the technology were used to control nuclear weapons, the foreign minister has warned.

In a speech to the United Nations Security Council, Penny Wong said that while AI has extraordinary potential, it also presents significant dangers if it isn’t kept in check.

Of particular concern was the use of AI in wartime settings, which she said posed a real risk of catastrophic consequences due to a lack of human oversight.

“AI’s potential use in nuclear weapons and unmanned systems challenges the future of humanity,” she told the council.