Trying to predict how AI will reshape the law is ‘hubris’, warns Microsoft’s top lawyer

Microsoft’s chief legal officer Jon Palmer has compared the rise of AI to the invention of the printing press, which eliminated the work of scribes but created a raft of new industries that nobody could have foreseen, reports US legal website Law.com.

Similarly, it is impossible at this point to predict how AI will reshape the legal profession.

Speaking on a panel with other in-house legal leaders, Palmer said right now, lawyers were primarily using AI to sift through large datasets and extract insights, freeing up lawyers and paralegals for more high-value work. It was an open question whether these efficiencies would eventually replace lawyers.