Chips and Electricity Aren’t Enough: Why AI Will Never Practice Law
Law is philosophy, not math. We can share math and logic with machines, but philosophy belongs to humans.
For all the information machines can quickly gather and synthesize, two things remain beyond them that sit at the heart of the attorney-client relationship.
One is loyalty. Loyalty requires the capacity to lose something by staying. AI fears nothing, not death, not imprisonment, not humiliation, because it feels nothing. We know this at the most basic scientific level: emotions are electrochemical, and machines have electricity but no chemistry.
Then there’s duty. The law’s power to deprive people of liberty and property demands that its wielders be bound by enforceable duty and accountability. A machine cannot be disbarred, sanctioned, or shamed.
The practice of law is for people.