AI In Risk And Compliance: Mind The Expectation Gap

It is almost impossible to walk down the street, read the news, or scroll through LinkedIn posts these days without being bombarded with two letters: AI. Artificial Intelligence is being presented as the answer to almost every challenge in business, the workplace, and even our personal lives, with new businesses springing up to capitalise on AI fever. But does the product live up to the packaging, or are we facing an “expectation gap” between what society believes AI will deliver, and what it can actually achieve?

As a lawyer who remembers practice before the internet and email, not to mention floppy disks and cassettes, I feel a degree of trepidation about the growing reliance by law students and junior lawyers on AI-assisted research. Although the instantaneous collation and dissemination of information is impressive and indisputably useful, I am troubled that AI research is too surgical and risks diluting – or in some cases removing – the art of lateral thinking.