While the legal profession can benefit from the legal profession using artificial intelligence (AI), it can never replace humanity.
These were the words of wisdom shared by Deputy Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, Andries Nel, in addressing aspirant legal professionals during the career day for law students on Friday at the North-West University’s Mahikeng campus.
Nel pointed out that as future lawyers, the students will also enter a profession undergoing profound technological change. “The traditional tools of legal practice were once the pen, the brief and the law report. Today they include algorithms, digital platforms, data analytics and artificial intelligence.
”AI can already search vast quantities of law. It can summarise judgments. It can draft contracts. It can identify patterns. It may even predict likely outcomes in litigation,” Nel said. He encouraged the students to understand these technologies and to use them. But at the same time, he warned about its limitations.
“A machine can process information. It cannot possess integrity. It can identify precedent. It cannot understand the moral weight of a decision.” Nel said it can produce an argument, but it cannot comfort a victim.
“It can analyse evidence. It cannot fully appreciate the fear of a witness, the vulnerability of a child or the dignity of an accused person. It cannot take an oath. It cannot accept responsibility. It cannot understand justice in the human sense. That remains your responsibility,” he told the students.
He stressed the fact that the future will not need lawyers who compete with machines at processing information. It will need lawyers who bring to technology what technology cannot supply – judgment, empathy, ethics, courage and human understanding.
Nel said the challenge is therefore not to resist technological change. It is to ensure that technology serves justice rather than replacing humanity.
He pointed out that before former president Nelson Mandela became president of the Republic, he was a lawyer. “He understood that law could be used in two very different ways. It could be used to dominate, or it could be used to liberate. It could be used to exclude, or it could be used to protect. It could serve power or it could hold power accountable”. Nel said Mandela chose justice.
He also reminded the students that the law profession requires integrity. “Your reputation will be one of your greatest professional assets. It may take years to build. It can be lost in a moment. Do not trade integrity for convenience. Do not trade principle for popularity. Do not trade the public trust for private advantage”.
The law is not merely a profession. It is a public trust, he said, in encouraging the students to use their education to defend that trust. “Use your careers to strengthen our Constitution. Use your lives to help build a South Africa that is more equal, more accountable and more just,” he told the students.
Nel also pointed out that the world does not merely need more attorneys, advocates, prosecutors or judges. It needs ethical members of the judiciary. “Lawyers who understand that the law must protect the vulnerable and constrain the powerful. Lawyers who understand that justice is not a commodity available only to those who can afford it”.
He concluded that the country needs lawyers who know that democracy survives only when the rule of law is respected.
