Introducing the GPT Store

Introducing the GPT Store — from OpenAI
We’re launching the GPT Store to help you find useful and popular custom versions of ChatGPT.

It’s been two months since we announced GPTs, and users have already created over 3 million custom versions of ChatGPT. Many builders have shared their GPTs for others to use. Today, we’re starting to roll out the GPT Store to ChatGPT Plus, Team and Enterprise users so you can find useful and popular GPTs. Visit chat.openai.com/gpts to explore.



Introducing ChatGPT Team — from openai.com
We’re launching a new ChatGPT plan for teams of all sizes, which provides a secure, collaborative workspace to get the most out of ChatGPT at work.

ChatGPT Team offers access to our advanced models like GPT-4 and DALL·E 3, and tools like Advanced Data Analysis. It additionally includes a dedicated collaborative workspace for your team and admin tools for team management. As with ChatGPT Enterprise, you own and control your business data—we do not train on your business data or conversations, and our models don’t learn from your usage. More details on our data privacy practices can be found on our privacy page and Trust Portal.


GPT Store — from theneurondaily.com by Noah Edelman & Pete Huang

The App Store for ChatGPTs is here.

OpenAI finally launched its GPT Store—a hub offering access to over 3 million GPTs, for paid users (#sorrynotsorry).
If you missed pt. 1, pt. 2, and pt. 3 of our GPTs analysis, here’s the TLDR: GPTs are customized versions of ChatGPT pre-loaded with prompts or context, each designed to be good at specific tasks.

There’s a GPT for everything, like one for lesson plans, one that crunches numbers, and one that recommends books you’ll buy but never read.

The GPT Store is a game-changer.


OpenAI Just Released The GPT Store. Here’s How To Use It And Make Money With Your GPT — from artificialcorner.com by The Pycoach
Learn how to publish your GPT to the store and monetize it.

How to stand out on the GPT Store
The low barrier to entry for making GPTs will make earning money on the GPT store difficult. Not everyone will make tons of money off their GPT, but I think those with more chances of success will:

  • Use custom actions: This is a feature that allows your GPT to connect to an API. Connecting to APIs gives your GPT new functionalities that others won’t be able to replicate unless they have access to the API (here you can see my tutorial on how to add custom action to your GPT)
  • Use knowledge: Knowledge is a feature that allows you to add files to your GPT. Adding exclusive information could enrich your GPT and help it stand out from the pack. Just remember that files can be downloaded when the code interpreter is enabled.

OpenAI releases the app store of AI — from superhuman.ai by Zain Kahn

App stores are ginormous businesses. According to CNBC’s estimates, Apple’s App Store grossed north of $70 Billion in 2022. That’s more revenue than Spotify, Shopify and Airbnb generated in the same year — combined.

When you look at the size of the opportunity that app stores built on top of popular platforms unlock, OpenAI’s latest move to launch a GPT Store is another bold bet by the startup that’s already leading the LLM and chatbot markets with GPT-4 and ChatGPT.

Announced [on 1/10/24], the GPT Store is a place for ChatGPT users to find custom versions of the chatbot that are designed for specific use cases.

 

Your classmate could be an AI student at this Michigan university  — from mlive.com by Melissa Frick

BIG RAPIDS, MI – A Michigan university is believed to be the first in the country to use artificial intelligence (AI) to create virtual students that will enroll in classes and participate in lessons and assignments.

Ferris State University, which has one of just three undergraduate AI programs in the U.S., has developed two AI students who are enrolling at Ferris State as freshmen this semester and taking classes alongside human classmates.

At first, Ann and Fry will only be able to observe the class, but the goal is for the AI students to soon be able to speak during classroom discussions and have two-way conversations with their classmates, Thompson said.

Also relevant, see:

These two new Ferris State students are actually AI

These two new Ferris State students are actually AI — from woodtv.com by Demetrios Sanders

BIG RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — As Ferris State University gets ready for its spring semester, two virtual students will begin classes as part of a new artificial intelligence experiment.

Ferris State University offers one of three AI undergraduate programs in the entire country.

“We are leaders in the artificial intelligence area, and why not put us to the test?” said Dr. Kasey Thompson, special assistant to the president for innovation and entrepreneurship at Ferris State.

University enrolling AI-powered “Students” who will turn in assignments, participate in class discussions — from futurism.com
Even students aren’t safe from AI.

Students at Ferris State University in Michigan will soon be sharing the classroom with AI-powered freshman “students” who will enroll in classes alongside them, MLive reports.

And no, they won’t have humanoid robot bodies — they’ll be interacting with students via computers, microphones, and speakers.

In an experiment led by associate professor Kasey Thompson, AI students dubbed Ann and Fry will be listening — or scanning through? — lectures, work on assignments, and even actively participate in discussions with other students, per the report.


AI & “Un-Personalised” Learning — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman
Exploring the full potential of AI to improve human learning, beyond the 1:1 AI tutor

In this week’s blog post we will look at AI from a different angle and ask: what are the pros and cons of using AI for personalisation? And what’s the potential impact of using AI to optimise and scale more connected, communal learning experiences?

TL;DR: while personalised learning has some benefits for some learner outcomes, the social interaction and connected aspects of communal learning are proven to offer similar academic benefits, as well as additional socio-cultural benefits for a broader range of students.

AI for “Un-Personalised” Learning
The next question is, of course: how could we use AI to scale the positive outcomes of “un-personalised”, communal learning?

Here are some initial ideas:


How to make the most of ChatGPT in 2024 — from wondertools.substack.com by Jeremy Caplan
A Wonder Tools guide


N.Y. Governor Hochul Proposes $400 Million To Launch University AI Consortium — from forbes-com.cdn.ampproject.org by Michael T. Nietzel

New York Governor Kathy Hochul wants to make New York the nation’s leader in artificial intelligence research and development. As part of her State of the State address on Tuesday, Hochul proposed the creation of Empire AI – a consortium of the state’s research universities and other institutions that would form an artificial intelligence computing center in upstate New York.

Empire AI would include seven founding institutions—Columbia University, Cornell University, New York University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the State University of New York (SUNY), the City University of New York (CUNY), and the Simons Foundation.


North Carolina AI Education Guidance Release — from stefanbauschard.substack.com by Stefan Bauschard
“A” grade in my mind; it just needs to anticipate the near future a bit more

TLDR
The Guidance

*North Carolina has arguably issued the best AI guidance to date (IMHO), and I explain why below (my highlighted version is here). This is in no way a knock on the other guidance reports, as I think they offer a lot them of very important and essential guidance. I just really like how NC packages it and the emphasis they put on certain things.

 

CES 2024: Unveiling The Future Of Legal Through Consumer Innovations — from abovethelaw.com by Stephen Embry
The ripple effects on the legal industry are real.

The Emerging Role of Smart TVs
Boothe and Comiskey claim that our TVs will become even smarter and better connected to the web and the internet. Our TVs will become an intelligent center for a variety of applications powered through our smartphone. TVs will be able to direct things like appliances and security cameras. Perhaps even more importantly, our TVs can become e-commerce centers, allowing us to speak with them and conduct business.

This increased TV capability means that the TV could become a more dominant mode of working and computing for lawyers. As TVs become more integrated with the internet and capable of functioning as communication hubs, they could potentially replace traditional computing devices in legal settings. With features like voice control and pattern recognition, TVs could serve as efficient tools for such things as document preparation and client meetings.

From DSC:
Now imagine the power of voice-enabled chatbots and the like. We could be videoconferencing (or holograming) with clients, and be able to access information at the same time. Language translation — like that in the Timekettle product — will be built in.

I also wonder how this type of functionality will play out in lifelong learning from our living rooms.

Learning from the Living AI-Based Class Room

 


Also, some other legaltech-related items:


Are Tomorrow’s Lawyers Prepared for Legal’s Tech Future? 4 Recent Trends Shaping Legal Education | Legaltech News — from law.com (behind paywall)

Legal Tech Predictions for 2024: Embracing a New Era of Innovation — from jdsupra.com

As we step into 2024, the legal industry continues to be reshaped by technological advancements. This year promises to bring new developments that could revolutionize how legal professionals work and interact with clients. Here are key predictions for legal tech in 2024:

Miss the Legaltech Week 2023 Year-in-Review Show? Here’s the Recording — from lawnext.com by Bob Ambrogi

Last Friday was Legaltech Week’s year-end show, in which our panel of journalists and bloggers picked the year’s top stories in legal tech and innovation.

So what were the top stories? Well, if you missed it, no worries. Here’s the video:

 

ChatGPT Gold Rush Of 2024 — from newsletter.thedailybite.co
GPT marketplace, McAfee’s anti-deepfake tech, and more…

Forget pickaxes and panning for nuggets; the new frontier of wealth lies in lines of code.

OpenAI just announced that their GPT Store is launching this week, and it allows ChatGPT Plus and Enterprise customers to create and sell their own custom AI models – no coding required. ?

Translation for those sleeping in the back:

This is the beginning of the GPT Gold Rush.

Opens AI’s move allows users to create a GPT for essentially any need. Imagine a specific GPT for anything from a fitness coach to a master chef recipe generator AND you get paid when people use it.


Are We All In On OpenAI’s GPT Store? — from news.theaiexchange.com
Custom GPTs: A new revenue stream?; DIY AI sales development rep

Excerpt from OpenAI’s GPT Store: A Game-Changer or a Gamble? section:

But before you dive in to Custom GPTs, there are a few things you should know.

  1. Access to these custom GPTs is exclusive to ChatGPT Plus paid accounts. This could be a strategic move by OpenAI to increase Plus account adoption, and it could deter potential users.
  2. OpenAI hasn’t been forthcoming about the revenue sharing model. This lack of transparency could definitely discourage creators from sharing their custom GPTs.
  3. Some of the data uploaded to and chat transcripts in custom GPTs are shared back with OpenAI for future AI model training.

 

 
 

Our AI predictions for 2024 — from superhuman.ai by Zain Kahn
ALSO: How to create videos with ChatGPT

  1. AI-generated video becomes a reality
  2. AI will become an essential skill for job seekers, as employers rush to adopt AI
  3. AI will unlock new use cases for smartphones, as more efficient models enable AI features on smaller devices
  4. AI models will become smaller, cheaper and multimodal
  5. Expect drama — a lot more drama

Morgan Stanley predicts that AI will affect 40% of the workforce in the next 3 years.

 

AI University for UK? — from donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com by Donald Clark

Tertiary Education in the UK needs a fresh idea. What we need is an initiative on the same scale as The Open University, kicked off over 50 years ago.

It is clear that an educational vision is needed and I think the best starting point is that outlined and executed by Paul LeBlanc at SNHU. It is substantial, well articulated and has worked in what has become the largest University in the US.

It would be based on the competence model, with a focus on skills shortages. Here’s a starter with 25 ideas, a manifesto of sorts, based on lessons learnt from other successful models:

  1. Non-traditional students in terms of age and background
  2. Quick and easy application process
  3. Personalised learning using AI
  4. Multimodal from the start
  5. Full range of summarisation, create self-assessment, dialogue tools
  6. Focus on generative learning using AI
  7. …and Donald lists many more (ending at #25)
 

Learners’ Edition: AI-powered Coaching, Professional Certifications + Inspiring conversations about mastering your learning & speaking skills

Learners’ Edition: AI-powered Coaching, Professional Certifications + Inspiring conversations about mastering your learning & speaking skills — from linkedin.com by Tomer Cohen

Excerpts:

1. Your own AI-powered coaching
Learners can go into LinkedIn Learning and ask a question or explain a challenge they are currently facing at work (we’re focusing on areas within Leadership and Management to start). AI-powered coaching will pull from the collective knowledge of our expansive LinkedIn Learning library and, instantaneously, offer advice, examples, or feedback that is personalized to the learner’s skills, job, and career goals.

What makes us so excited about this launch is we can now take everything we as LinkedIn know about people’s careers and how they navigate them and help accelerate them with AI.

3. Learn exactly what you need to know for your next job
When looking for a new job, it’s often the time we think about refreshing our LinkedIn profiles. It’s also a time we can refresh our skills. And with skill sets for jobs having changed by 25% since 2015 – with the number expected to increase by 65% by 2030– keeping our skills a step ahead is one of the most important things we can do to stand out.

There are a couple of ways we’re making it easier to learn exactly what you need to know for your next job:

When you set a job alert, in addition to being notified about open jobs, we’ll recommend learning courses and Professional Certificate offerings to help you build the skills needed for that role.

When you view a job, we recommend specific courses to help you build the required skills. If you have LinkedIn Learning access through your company or as part of a Premium subscription, you can follow the skills for the job, that way we can let you know when we launch new courses for those skills and recommend you content on LinkedIn that better aligns to your career goals.


2024 Edtech Predictions from Edtech Insiders — from edtechinsiders.substack.com by Alex Sarlin, Ben Kornell, and Sarah Morin
Omni-modal AI, edtech funding prospects, higher ed wake up calls, focus on career training, and more!

Alex: I talked to the 360 Learning folks at one point and they had this really interesting epiphany, which is basically that it’s been almost impossible for every individual company in the past to create a hierarchy of skills and a hierarchy of positions and actually organize what it looks like for people to move around and upskill within the company and get to new paths.

Until now. AI actually can do this very well. It can take not only job description data, but it can take actual performance data. It can actually look at what people do on a daily basis and back fit that to training, create automatic training based on it.

From DSC:
I appreciated how they addressed K-12, higher ed, and the workforce all in one posting. Nice work. We don’t need siloes. We need more overall design thinking re: our learning ecosystems — as well as more collaborations. We need more on-ramps and pathways in a person’s learning/career journey.

 

The biggest things that happened in AI this year — from superhuman.ai by Zain Kahn

January:

  • Microsoft raises eyebrows with a huge $10 Billion investment in OpenAI.

February:

  • Meta launches Llama 2, their open-source rival to OpenAI’s models.
  • OpenAI announces ChatGPT Plus, a paid version of their chatbot.
  • Microsoft announces a new AI-powered Bing Search.

March:

  • OpenAI announces the powerful GPT-4 model, still considered to be the gold standard.
  • Midjourney releases V5, which brings AI-powered image generation one step closer to reality.
  • Microsoft launches Copilot for Microsoft 365.
  • Google launches Bard, its rival to ChatGPT.

…and more


AI 2023: A Year in Review — from stefanbauschard.substack.com by Stefan Bauschard
2023 developments in AI and a hint of what they are building toward

Some of the items that Stefan includes in his posting include:

  • ChatGPT and other language models that generate text.
  • Image generators.
  • Video generators.
  • AI models that that can read, hear, and speak.
  • AI models that can see.
  • Improving models.
  • “Multimodal” models.
  • Training on specific content.
  • Reasoning & planning.
  • …and several others

The Dictionary.com Word of the Year is “hallucinate.” — from content.dictionary.com by Nick Norlen and Grant Barrett; via The Rundown AI

hallucinate
[ huhloo-suh-neyt ]

verb
(of artificial intelligence) to produce false information contrary to the intent of the user and present it as if true and factual. Example: When chatbots hallucinate, the result is often not just inaccurate but completely fabricated.


Soon, every employee will be both AI builder and AI consumer — from zdnet.com by Joe McKendrick, via Robert Gibson on LinkedIn
“Standardized tools and platforms as well as advanced low- or no-code tech may enable all employees to become low-level engineers,” suggests a recent report.

The time could be ripe for a blurring of the lines between developers and end-users, a recent report out of Deloitte suggests. It makes more business sense to focus on bringing in citizen developers for ground-level programming, versus seeking superstar software engineers, the report’s authors argue, or — as they put it — “instead of transforming from a 1x to a 10x engineer, employees outside the tech division could be going from zero to one.”

Along these lines, see:

  • TECH TRENDS 2024 — from deloitte.com
    Six emerging technology trends demonstrate that in an age of generative machines, it’s more important than ever for organizations to maintain an integrated business strategy, a solid technology foundation, and a creative workforce.

UK Supreme Court rules AI is not an inventor — from theverge.com by Emilia David

The ruling follows a similar decision denying patent registrations naming AI as creators.

The UK Supreme Court ruled that AI cannot get patents, declaring it cannot be named as an inventor of new products because the law considers only humans or companies to be creators.


The Times Sues OpenAI and Microsoft Over A.I. Use of Copyrighted Work — from nytimes.com by Michael M. Grynbaum and Ryan Mac

The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement on Wednesday, opening a new front in the increasingly intense legal battle over the unauthorized use of published work to train artificial intelligence technologies.

The suit does not include an exact monetary demand. But it says the defendants should be held responsible for “billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages” related to the “unlawful copying and use of The Times’s uniquely valuable works.” It also calls for the companies to destroy any chatbot models and training data that use copyrighted material from The Times.

On this same topic, also see:


Apple’s iPhone Design Chief Enlisted by Jony Ive, Sam Altman to Work on AI Devices — from bloomberg.com by Mark Gurman (behind paywall)

  • Design executive Tang Tan is set to leave Apple in February
  • Tan will join Ive’s LoveFrom design studio, work on AI project

AI 2023: Chatbots Spark New Tools — from heatherbcooper.substack.com by Jeather Cooper

ChatGPT and Other Chatbots
The arrival of ChatGPT sparked tons of new AI tools and changed the way we thought about using a chatbot in our daily lives.

Chatbots like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Bing Chat can help content creators by quickly generating ideas, outlines, drafts, and full pieces of content, allowing creators to produce more high-quality content in less time.

These AI tools boost efficiency and creativity in content production across formats like blog posts, social captions, newsletters, and more.


Microsoft’s next Surface laptops will reportedly be its first true ‘AI PCs’ — from theverge.com by Emma Roth
Next year’s Surface Laptop 6 and Surface Pro 10 will feature Arm and Intel options, according to Windows Central.

Microsoft is getting ready to upgrade its Surface lineup with new AI-enabled features, according to a report from Windows Central. Unnamed sources told the outlet the upcoming Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 will come with a next-gen neural processing unit (NPU), along with Intel and Arm-based options.


How one of the world’s oldest newspapers is using AI to reinvent journalism — from theguardian.com by Alexandra Topping
Berrow’s Worcester Journal is one of several papers owned by the UK’s second biggest regional news publisher to hire ‘AI-assisted’ reporters

With the AI-assisted reporter churning out bread and butter content, other reporters in the newsroom are freed up to go to court, meet a councillor for a coffee or attend a village fete, says the Worcester News editor, Stephanie Preece.

“AI can’t be at the scene of a crash, in court, in a council meeting, it can’t visit a grieving family or look somebody in the eye and tell that they’re lying. All it does is free up the reporters to do more of that,” she says. “Instead of shying away from it, or being scared of it, we are saying AI is here to stay – so how can we harness it?”



What to Expect in AI in 2024 — from hai.stanford.edu by
Seven Stanford HAI faculty and fellows predict the biggest stories for next year in artificial intelligence.

Topics include:

  • White Collar Work Shifts
  • Deepfake Proliferation
  • GPUs Shortage
  • More Helpful Agents
  • Hopes for U.S. Regulation
  • Asking Big Questions, Applying New Policies
  • Companies Will Navigate Complicated Regulations

Addendum on 1/2/24:


 

K12 District-Level Perspectives on AI — from aiforeducation.io by Amanda Bickerstaff, Dr. Patrick Gittisriboongul, Samantha Armstrong, & Brett Roer

Want to know how K12 schools are navigating the adoption of AI and what district-level leaders really think about GenAI EdTech tools?

Join us for this free webinar where we discussed AI technology, literacy, training, and the responsible adoption of GenAI tools in K12. Our panel explored what is working well – and not so well – across their districts from a school leader and practitioner’s perspective.


ChatGPT Has Changed Teaching. Our Readers Tell Us How. — from chronicle.com by Beth McMurtrie and Beckie Supiano

Those vastly different approaches to college writing pretty much sum up the responses to generative AI: They’re all over the map.

One year after its release, ChatGPT has pushed higher education into a liminal place. Colleges are still hammering out large-scale plans and policies governing how generative AI will be dealt with in operations, research, and academic programming. But professors have been forced more immediately to adapt their classrooms to its presence. Those adaptations vary significantly, depending on whether they see the technology as a tool that can aid learning or as a threat that inhibits it.

Nearly 100 faculty members shared their stories. While not a representative sample, they teach at a wide range of institutions: 15 community colleges, 32 public and 24 private four-year colleges or universities, seven international institutions, and one for-profit college. They teach a variety of subjects, including animal science, statistics, computer science, history, accounting, and composition. Many spent hours learning about AI: enrolling in workshops and webinars, experimenting with the tools, and reading articles, so that they could enter the fall semester informed and prepared.


The Disruption of AI in CTE Is Real — from techlearning.com by Annie Galvin Teich
An ACTE expert panel urges CTE educators to jump on the AI train as it’s already left the station

10 Best Practices for AI and CTE 

  1. Embrace AI and use it first for simple tasks to create efficiencies. Then use it to individualize instruction and for formative assessment tools aligned to standards.
  2. Be creative and conscious of internal bias and ethics. Focus on DEI and access.
  3. Encourage students to use apps and tools to start moving toward an integrated curriculum using AI.
  4. Prepare students for jobs of the future by partnering with industry to solve real problems.
  5. …and others

How are universities responding to generative AI? — from medium.com by Nic Newman
What’s next for higher education as we enter a new wave of edtech innovation: AI-powered learning

Where will AI make a big difference?
At Emerge, we have identified eight high-level trends — what we’re calling “engines of opportunity”. These eight “engines of opportunity” capture our ideas about how AI is being used to drive better practice and outcomes in HE, now and into the future.

They fall into two main categories:

  • Making learning more engaging: solutions that scale high quality pedagogy at low cost.
  • Making teaching more efficient: solutions that save educators and organisations time and money.

 

The Rise of Learning Societies — from educationnext.org by Alan Gottlieb
A small experiment in rural Idaho holds big promise for student success 

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

The basic idea is this: Some parents who, for a variety of reasons, hesitate to send their children to a traditional brick-and-mortar school have neither the time, inclination, or temperament to homeschool or to monitor a full-time online program. Learning Societies provide an intimate environment where kids, supervised by professional educators, learn online and in small, in-person groups for six hours a day. Gem Prep leaders describe it as a sweet spot between traditional schooling and at-home online learning. It is particularly well suited to rural areas.

Learning Societies have the potential to achieve a happy medium that combines the strengths of both homeschooling (or online learning from home) and a traditional brick-and-mortar school.

A typical school day at a Gem Prep Learning Society sees some students engaged in online lessons on laptops while others receive instruction from a teacher in a small group, all within the same classroom. Both modalities use Gem Prep Online’s well-regarded curriculum.

 

Using Drawing as a Powerful Learning Tool — from edutopia.org by Selim Tlili
When students draw something they’re learning about, they’re more likely to remember key details.

One of my main goals as a science teacher is to open students up to seeing all of those beautiful and interesting details. I do that by having students draw things and clearly write what they observe. Drawing something requires students to look at their subject far longer than they are accustomed. Writing what they see forces them to consciously acknowledge it. I explain to students that just as every single human is unique, so is every coin, plant, and salt crystal.

 

 

Google hopes that this personalized AI -- called Notebook LM -- will help people with their note-taking, thinking, brainstorming, learning, and creating.

Google NotebookLM (experiment)

From DSC:
Google hopes that this personalized AI/app will help people with their note-taking, thinking, brainstorming, learning, and creating.

It reminds me of what Derek Bruff was just saying in regards to Top Hat’s Ace product being able to work with a much narrower set of information — i.e., a course — and to be almost like a personal learning assistant for the course you are taking. (As Derek mentions, this depends upon how extensively one uses the CMS/LMS in the first place.)

 

Smart energy grids. Voice-first companion apps.
Programmable medicines. AI tools for kids. We asked
over 40 partners across a16z to preview one big idea
they believe will drive innovation in 2024.

Narrowly Tailored, Purpose-Built AI
In 2024, I predict we’ll see narrower AI solutions. While ChatGPT may be a great general AI assistant, it’s unlikely to “win” for every task. I expect we’ll see an AI platform purpose-built for researchers, a writing generation tool targeted for journalists, and a rendering platform specifically for designers, to give just a few examples.

Over the longer term, I think the products people use on an everyday basis will be tailored to their use cases — whether this is a proprietary underlying model or a special workflow built around it. These companies will have the chance to “own” the data and workflow for a new era of technology; they’ll do this by nailing one category, then expanding. For the initial product, the narrower the better.

— via Olivia Moore, who focuses on marketplace startups

 

Can new AI help to level up the scales of justice?


From DSC:
As you can see from the above items, Mr. David Goodrich, a great human being and a fellow Instructional Designer, had a great comment and question regarding the source of my hope that AI — and other forms of legaltech — could significantly provide more access to justice here in America. Our civil justice system has some serious problems — involving such areas as housing, employment, healthcare, education, families, and more.

I’d like to respond to that question here.

First of all, I completely get what David is saying. I, too, have serious doubts that our horrible access to justice (#A2J) situation will get better. Why? Because:

  • Many people working within the legal field like it this way, as they are all but assured victory in most of the civil lawsuits out there.
  • The Bar Associations of most of the states do not support changes that would threaten their incomes/livelihoods. This is especially true in California and Florida.
  • The legal field in general is not composed, for the most part, of highly innovative people who make things happen for the benefit of others. For example, the American Bar Association is 20+ years behind in terms of providing the level of online-based learning opportunities that they should be offering. They very tightly control how legal education is delivered in the U.S.

Here are several areas that provide me with hope for our future


There are innovative individuals out there fighting for change.
And though some of these individuals don’t reside in the United States, their work still impacts many here in America. For examples, see:

There are innovative new companies, firms, and other types of organizations out there fighting for change. For examples:

There are innovative new tools and technologies out there such as:

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) 
    • AI and machine learning remain pivotal in legaltech, especially for in-house lawyers who deal with vast quantities of contracts and complex legal matters. In 2024, these technologies will be integral for legal research, contract review, and the drafting of legal documents. Statistics from the Tech & the Law 2023 Report state more than three in five corporate legal departments (61%) have adopted generative AI in some capacity, with 7% actively using generative AI in their day-to-day work. With constant improvements to LLM (Large Language Models) by the big players, i.e. OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft (via OpenAI), 2024 will see more opportunities open and efficiencies gained for legal teams. (Source)
    • From drafting contracts to answering legal questions and summarising legal issues, AI is revolutionising the legal profession and although viewed with a sceptical eye by some law firms, is generally perceived to be capable of bringing huge benefits. (Source)
    • Legal bots like Harvey will assist lawyers with discovery.
  • Technology-assisted review (TAR) in e-discovery
  • Due to COVID 19, there were virtual courtrooms set up and just like with virtual/online-based learning within higher education, many judges, litigants, lawyers, and staff appreciated the time savings and productivity gains. Along these lines, see Richard Susskind’s work. [Richard] predicts a world of online courts, AI-based global legal businesses, disruptive legal technologies, liberalized markets, commoditization, alternative sourcing, simulated practice on the metaverse, and many new legal jobs. (Source)

There are innovative states out there fighting for change. For examples:

  • Utah in 2020 launched a pilot program that suspended ethics rules to allow for non-lawyer ownership of legal services providers and let non-lawyers apply for a waiver to offer certain legal services. (Source)
  • Arizona in 2021 changed its regulatory rules to allow for non-lawyer ownership. (Source)
  • Alaska with their Alaska Legal Services Corporation
  • …and others

And the last one — but certainly not the least one — is where my faith comes into play. I believe that the Triune God exists — The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit — and that the LORD is very active in our lives and throughout the globe. And one of the things the LORD values highly is JUSTICE. For examples:

  • Many seek an audience with a ruler, but it is from the Lord that one gets justice. Proverbs 29:26 NIV
  • These are the things you are to do: Speak the truth to each other, and render true and sound judgment in your courts; Zechariah 8:16 NIV
  • …and many others as can be seen below

The LORD values JUSTICE greatly!


So I believe that the LORD will actively help us provide greater access to justice in America.


Well…there you have it David. Thanks for your question/comment! I appreciate it!

 
© 2024 | Daniel Christian