Joanne Brook was fortunate enough to participate in a panel of industry specialists and business owners giving trial interviews to young people. She writes:
“In the lunch break all talk was about AI, its use in schools, in CV writing, in recruitment and in work. Being a technology lawyer I have been around AI law for a such long time now I told the other panellists that a few years ago I thought I’d said everything I could about AI adoption and contracts, but that I’ve been drawn back in to speaking and writing about it and because I realised there is much to say and much work to do around its practical adoption and safe use.
I was reminded again about Dame Victoria Sharp (current president of the High Court King’s Bench division) talk at the Inner Temple earlier this week so brilliantly recounted with commentary and insight by Joshua Rozenberg which you can read here: https://open.substack.com/pub/rozenberg/p/intelligence-v-independence?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web.
Dame Sharp warned in her talk, primarily about the adoption of AI in Courts but just as applicable to business, of the risks of subordinating genuine human insight to “managerial objectives” of output efficiency. This is a risk we must guard against in how we choose to use AI and this is our choice to make. We should and in fact I’d go so far as to say we must put practices in place determining when and where to deploy AI, how to use it, how to reduce inherent bias and minimise risk in the programs we use. We need to decide how staff are trained to use AI and the level of scrutiny we apply to the output from the programs we use. We should not simply slide in adoption of AI because it apparently simplifies tasks, when doing so means we outsource decision making and autonomy.
We also need to protect against blanket scaping of data to protect the creative industries whose output is part of our national character and heritage, as well as one of our biggest economic sectors and exports, and protect the copyright of authors so they know when their works have been used for AI training and can choose to ‘opt-out’ of that use, as called for by the Creative Rights in AI Coalition last year and again last month.
I’m not arguing that we must ‘fight the machine’, I’m advocating to learn how to use the tool so we don’t use ‘a hammer to crack a walnut’. To paraphrase what Dame Victoria Sharp said and Joshua Rozenberg recounted so well, challenges to humans are not new, especially in a workplace environment. We continually invent new tools to work better or harder, or to do work that it would take our human bodies hours of labour to achieve. We push ourselves to improve and hone skills to use those tools we create, so let’s see AI for what it is, another tool. Let’s choose how and when to use that tool, and just as importantly when not to.
My take-away from the panel and the candidates yesterday? So many of our young people are vibrant and engaged, let’s continue to give them the chances they need and use our experience to create a working environment where they can thrive.”
For advice on adopting AI and contracts, using AI in the workplace and recruitment and use policies, contact Joanne Brook here at Brecher.
This update is for general purpose and guidance only and does not constitute legal advice. Specific legal advice should be taken before acting on any of the topics covered. No part of this update may be used, reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means without the prior permission of Brecher LLP.
