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Survey of AI and women in the law: Bias, inaccuracy and uptraining noted
RICHARD WEINER
Technology for Lawyers
Published: December 27, 2024
A recent survey of how AI currently affects women in the law doesn’t show any real surprises, with the built-in biases of the platform, needed training and historic inaccuracy among top-level concerns of respondents.
The survey was conducted by Linklaters, She Breaks the Law and Next 100 Years of women in various positions in the legal industry.
Top-level findings of the survey include that 47% of respondents reported that they have experienced bias in GenAI responses, and over half have found inaccuracies in using GenAI.
As noted here and elsewhere for years, bias and inaccuracy are baked into generative AI.
They can’t not be.
The fundamental, underlying programming of AI is written predominantly by male non-lawyers. As hard as they try, or say that they try, bias will leak in.
To be a little clearer, there is a two-step process that goes into what you use as generative AI.
First is the underlying algorithm, and then that algo is trained.
In the case of using AI for legal purposes, it is trained by people with a legal education (usually JDs).
But the way that the AI spits out answers is still based on programming built by non-lawyers.
So mistakes can be made, regardless of the gender identity of the end user.
Bias is a little more straightforward, because that is built in to the system before it is trained.
It can’t be helped, based on who is writing the algos.
Even with these sticking points, AI is invading the industry.
According to the survey, 77% of respondents say that AI is having an ‘extremely significant’ impact on the profession, although, at the same time, a quarter of respondents said that lack of training was keeping women in the field from using AI.
Making up for this would be more training, mentorship and practical experience.
Beyond that, women who were out of the office for parenting and other responsibilities would have fewer training opportunities.
The risk identified in the survey is that AI could further the gender divide in the law profession.
Hopefully, AI trainers take this into consideration when training legal AI.
The report can be found here: https://www.linklaters.com/en/knowledge/publications/alerts-newsletters-and-guides/2024/december/03/gender-in-ai-report.