Entertainment lawyer Gordon Firemark made a blog post recently warning people not to ask AI for legal advice. As you might imagine, he cited some examples of how AI had made mistakes, gotten the law wrong, and generated language that put all the risk on the client rather than the supplier of the service.

He also noted that AI tends to validate the perspective of the person asking the question. He related the story of a client who wrote a strongly worded letter based on AI advice which created an antagonistic relationship with another party which resulted in a prolonged conflict between them.

He said the whole issue could have been solved with a minor revision in contract language and a conversation.

But even more importantly, Firemark says, when you ask AI for advice or to help you produce something, you are making assumptions about what the solution is. One example he gives is asking AI to generate an independent contractor document when the legally the relationship is employer-employee.

Likewise if you aren’t familiar with the difference between copyrights and trademarks, you may end up insufficiently protecting your corporate identity. You may incorporate your business using the wrong/disadvantageous structure.

As much as you may wish to avoid the cost of working with a lawyer, they are still able to evaluate your goals and the context of your requests better than AI. They can also help you recognize that what you think is important isn’t really relevant and that you have overlooked some crucial arrangements.