Orlagh Kelly: Alex Ustych from Five Essex Chambers. Thank you for joining me on the Get Briefed podcast. We're delighted to have you. I know you were called to the Bar in 2010. So you're 15 years in, you're ranked in The Legal 500 and specialising in data protection, inquiries, public law, police law, et cetera. I note that you're also counsel on the Grenfell Tower inquiry and on the COVID-19 inquiry, is that right?

Alex Ustych: Well, Grenfell Inquiry is finished now. That was my life for a number of years where I was specialising in data protection and disclosure issues. But yeah, upwards and onwards now.

Orlagh Kelly: And can you tell us and tell our audience a little bit about how you got started at the Bar, your background and what made you want to become a barrister?

Alex Ustych: Yes, I mean, I think I've got a bit of an unusual journey in that I started off in Ukraine where I grew up and then I moved to Europe as a teenager and then I came to study law, at Durham. So that was the first time I came to the UK. I was inspired to do law by a John Grisham novel I was reading when deciding which university course to pick, probably not the soundest basis for career choices, there you go. And then after I did my Bar course, I joined Five Essex Court as it was then, now Five Essex Chambers as a pupil. And I've been there for that very long 15 years, as you point out, makes me feel a bit old actually. But the reason I've...

Alex Ustych: I was very keen to talk to you about this particular topic. To be honest, I've always been a massive geek since I was a kid. I was opening up computers, putting together computers, reading science fiction in the 90s. Things like Isaac Asimov, a lot of it has to do with the challenges of AI in the future when that technology just wasn't there yet. So when I came to the Bar after some years, I veered towards a data protection, cybersecurity, privacy and human rights issues. The sort of areas that really interact most along with intellectual property, I think, with AI technologies. And I'm also on the Public Tech Committee of the Society for Computers and the Law, which has been around since the 50s, but it is certainly becoming even more prominent now with advent of AI and anyone interested who's listening should look into joining because that's the best really resource to learn about these advances and the implications for lawyers. So yeah, that's the short recap. I've been talking about AI for two or three years now and I've done some really interesting events like the Bar Council Kenya visit where I had an event about AI and I've been speaking both from a legal perspective and also alongside AI developers sometimes because even though I'm fairly techy, they are massively more so and there's no better way to find out about it than talking to someone who actually does the AI work as opposed to just talking about it.

Orlagh Kelly: Very good. And so, I mean, you can essentially talk to AI from two perspectives, I think. One, as a practitioner and how, regardless of what area of law that you practise in, how AI will intersect with that. And I know that a lot of our audience are interested because they might find that they won't ever practise in that world of data protection or AI in and of itself or IP, but that they do have to grapple with or think about AI their practice. But also you obviously are a practitioner, you are moving towards at least developing your expertise and probably your practice towards specialising in AI to some extent, even if it just were it interacts with data protection and your work there, is that correct?

Alex Ustych: Yes, at the moment, I don't think there's a of a deluge of AI related litigation. It has started in America already, New York Times and other cases, but at the moment it's mostly advisory, but it is starting to crop up. And as you probably know, the UK government is very, very much all guns blazing on AI. It's adopted a very softly, softly approach to regulation of AI compared to Europe to try and facilitate that technology developing. So yeah, I think it is going to be a day-to-day issue for people in my field to advise on, more so than it is now. But primarily my interaction with that is sort of looking at the implications, the legality, and the practicality of how is it going to impact my practice? How do you not get left behind by the rapid advances in technology?

Orlagh Kelly: And what's the answer to that, Alex? What is your analysis and your experience taking you towards? do you, for example, use AI tools in your practice to help support your advocacy and representation of your clients?

Alex Ustych: I think being a data practitioner means I have a pretty conservative view of using AI with client data and LPP, legal professional privilege data. I have seen individuals I think become sort of unstuck by trying to use tools they don't fully understand. I mean, litigants in person primarily as something I'll talk about in a bit because just this year, I've had quite a particularly startling encounter involving AI and litigation. But what I have done so far is I've experimented and tried out both myself and in the context of my chambers, a number of the legal specialised AI engines. This is not your Chat GPT. It's things, systems you pay for, sometimes quite a lot, the draw on vetted material. So For example, Westlaw and Lexis have systems which are trained on law reports that are their databases, articles from practitioners from academics, textbooks. So as distinct from what Steve from Reading said on Reddit and Chat GPT picked up when it scoops up the internet. So I do use and my colleagues use AI assisted research from one of those specialised paid for systems. And another useful resource I use is a thing called document analyser from again, one of these systems where you can plug in the bit you've written your skeleton argument or your opponent's skeleton argument about the law and precedents and it can point out to you: Is this actually the most relevant authority? Has it been overtaken? So again, this is not client data stuff. This is a useful aid. And I've noticed the last couple of months, Word has started popping up, copilot. Every time I open any Word document, which is super annoying, but it is really, it feels like you're pushed toward just putting data into these generalised systems, which I have to say I have not started doing because I am not yet satisfied that any of them to my mind as a data practitioner, are sufficiently secure to put any volume of personal client data .

Orlagh Kelly: Yes, there's obviously a significant risk for any barrister trying to maybe speed up and use the tools, but putting professionally privileged information or personal data in that doesn't seem like the systems or the tools are where they need to be right now unless you're paying quite a significant amount of money for them. Certainly, we advise a lot on GDPR internally here, at Briefed as well, and as time has gone on, I've even become a little bit anti-social media. I mean, I love technology, but AI has definitely taken things to a whole new level and it does bring a lot of risk to it as well. And so is there any way other than the research, is there any other ways that you use AI in your day to day life that you find it useful, that you think that it's moving towards being a helpful piece of technology?

Alex Ustych: I mean, I'm not a Luddite by any means. As far as my personal life, my own data is concerned, I'm probably put more of it in than I should do to ChatGPT because I find it immensely useful. Planning a trip or trying to get my head around pension contributions, impact on tax liability, things like that. I mean, I'm a huge convert of its day-to-day use, but I think I find perhaps because I'm not an accountant, maybe I don't spot all the errors it might produce in that context.

Orlagh Kelly: I did wonder, possibly, that the accountants would be jumping up and down saying don't use chat GPT for tax advice.

Alex Ustych: Just to be clear, I do have a proper accountant that does all the proper things, but sometimes, and this is the great thing about AI, just, in the middle of afternoon having a chat with my wife about family finances, we're like, okay, actually, what is this? What if we change this? What does this mean? I'm not gonna ring up my accountant every time for that, am I? The difference is, think using AI for low-stake stuff, If AI books me, tries to book me or recommends me a hotel in Romania on a trip, which has actually become a bit crap in the last year, that's not going to end my career. It's going to be inconvenient. Similarly, if I make a mistake how I plan out my pension for the year. But it's very different when, as we've seen, unfortunately, across the pond from the US, that's where it started the highly public cases and of lawyers using AI with hallucinations without properly understanding. Unfortunately, it's now come across to this side of the ocean. There have been cases here. I'm sure most of those listening know and I have real sympathy for these, for people who are affected by this because you open the news and you read about how AI is the most brilliant thing ever, it's actually gets a bit, I get a bit of AI fatigue. I mean, I don't know about you, but I feel like everything is AI now. I have a friend who works in sort of venture capitalists, capital stuff where she looks at proposals of companies for funding past a certain level in their development. And the real problem is everyone frames everything as AI now, even though a lot of the time it's exactly the same technology. So basic algorithms, basic software that was used 10 years ago, it's now being rebranded as AI. It's all, and it's part of the problem because you need to be educated enough AI, I think, to almost know what is actual AI and what is just rebranding. So, it's hugely complex. And I can see if you read all that coverage as a lawyer who maybe hasn't taken the time to do the research, you can take whatever Chat GPT produces as being the gospel effectively. You can get really unstuck. And I do feel for those people.

Orlagh Kelly: And how do you, so is it a generational difference? I mean, I'm thinking about a particular case where I believe it was a pupil or someone just post-pupillage who was found to have used Chat GPT in some capacity. There was suggestions that possibly wasn't supervised as well as they could have been by their pupil supervisor by that set of chambers, although that's disputed, but is it that young people are the people that are going to get caught out by this because older barristers and lawyers either know the law better already and have gone through the trenches as such or it's just simply because they're more conservative about technology. What's your opinion on that?

Alex Ustych: As part of our implementation of AI in chambers, again, in these very sort of general AI assisted research roles, we realised there can be no preconceptions about who's going to find AI useful practically. People who are really not tax savvy have taken it up quite easily. Because if you think about it, if I go onto my, I'm trying not to use the name of the particular product because I'm not paid any endorsements, I'm not an influencer. if I...

Orlagh Kelly: You are today, Alex.

Alex Ustych: Thank you. Well, if anyone wants to sponsor me ,for me to endorse anyone, I'm just kidding. But if there's any sort of convention somewhere in a tropical place around AI, I'm very happy to go. But yeah, it's actually much easier, much more convenient to go onto the front page of the system, with, instead of the usual search by subject, search by citation, and you just put in whatever fairly obscure legal point you want as a question in natural language. You don't have to understand the syntax of how the subject fields work. I mean, the hours I spent as a pupil and as a junior barrister to trying to find the answer to a really obscure point using the subject search thing in Westlaw. It helps no one really. And this is a massive step forward, which is to the point that I think a lot of people who started using that particular, again, highlighting highly vetted feature, not Chat GPT, would struggle to go back. And I think that of all ages and of all technology capabilities, because actually it is easier. As long as you can open your browser and you can log in, it's easier than using other tools. But I think you hit on a very good point, Orlagh, which is what about pupils and junior barristers? And actually, even though I'm very pro tech advancement, I think there is a lot to be said. And I said, and I stress that none of this represents my chambers views. Nothing I say today, really, this is all my own opinion. Probably should have said at the beginning. But there you are. Is that pupils and junior barristers should learn how to go to the library like I did. They should use know how to use the systems that they should understand law reports. They should know which ones are the good ones, which ones are the less good ones, which are the good textbooks. How do you check that a case has not been superseded? Because even with the system that I use, in spite of paying money, you good money for it, it doesn't come up with cases which don't exist because it's vetted on cases which actually are in the law reports. But there have been cases when it's said that a case decided something which actually really didn't and if I were to just cut and paste that that would be really into a skeleton argument that'd be super problematic. Now I know how to check, I know how to look for conflicting cases or subsequent cases but if you don't learn that skill as a pupil, junior barrister, law student then you might not be able to bring that critical approach and I think it is a real issue that what if we lose the skills to be able to do our own thinking and to do our own analysis. I think that's why everyone, regardless of how good these systems get, should start off with having those skills. And then you can make your life easier, but you have to go through the grind first.

Orlagh Kelly: Yeah, absolutely. That's a very fair point, I agree entirely. And so you mentioned that you had a startling case with a, was it a personal litigant recently?

Alex Ustych: Yeah, so I think another dimension that I can that's worth remembering is it's not about our own use of AI that drives AI implementation to the judicial system into justice into Day-to-day work. It's what our opponents or the other party does which is completely out of your control and It's been a start anecdotally a startling change in how litigating works since Chat GPT and others became prominent in the last couple of years. And I talked to a lot of solicitors about this because I know they know my interest and they often work in the tech field and data protection. There's been a significant increase in letters of claim and claims. I don't have sort of statistics from MoJ, Ministry of Justice to back this up. I don't think there is a statistic on AI influence or AI use in civil justice in terms of how many cases it was used . But what is pretty clear is we're getting, my clients are getting more claims. They tend to be of lower quality, as there is less merit to them on average. And they tend to be much more confusing, prolix, longer, often containing as we all know, wrong case law. And the other issue which comes up and I think this is what maybe drives is I think two things. The first is the barrier to actually drafting something which looks like a credible claim, at least to someone who doesn't really know what a credible claim looks like, is much lower because you just go to Chat GPT you describe your situation, it'll give you something you can, it'll ask you, do you want to put this in the form of a claim document? Then you cut and paste that. And you have no way of assessing if it's good or not. The second problem is AI sycophancy , I'm not sure, I don't know if you've heard the term. But I think that's something that has not really been discussed widely enough. And it is the fact that AI likes to tell you that you're right. All right.

Orlagh Kelly: I haven't heard it described as that but that does resonate with me when I've asked it some questions and I just know it's I like the answers but it's too good to be true.

Alex Ustych: Yeah, exactly. Now, I can't tell you how many bad restaurants I've gone to when going out for court around the country because AI wanted, when I asked it for like, is there a really good steak place in X town? And it'll say, yes, Alex, there's a great steak place here. And then it turns out it's either been closed for five years or it's awful, but the AI just wanted to please me. That's much more serious when people put the facts of their case, often with their own subjective slant into AI specific language they use, and they get back something saying, you know, you've got definitely a great case. You're going to be a millionaire or what? I'm exaggerating for dramatic effect, but that spurs on claims. The example that I was alluding to is, and this is the first one that I know of that happened to anyone, I'm sure it has, but where I was in a court hearing and a litigant in person who has previously definitely used AI their pleadings, because it was clear from the text, They were asked some questions by quite a senior judge and in response they asked, can I just have a second to check my notes? And they started typing and about 30 seconds later they started reading out from something that was quite clearly, well, first of all, largely nonsense, and secondly, it was very clearly just generated and saying things, I really believe that person would not, they were quite making some serious claims and allegation about wasted costs and things like that of no possible application to the case, no relevance. But they were reading it out because the AI told them to, I didn't, I wasn't looking at that screen, but I am personally very satisfied that's what was happening, was that inappropriate, well that I'm not sure that there's a rule against at the moment. There was a case America where someone tried to use an AI avatar to present that case which was very, you can see the video on YouTube, is very quickly quashed by the judges, in this case was less obvious, it was still obvious enough what happened is the allegations and what the person was reading out I believe that even if they applied their own brain to it, they would not have made those claims. But they were just, I believe, a victim of AI sycophancy and assuming that the almighty AI knows better than I do. And so they just made those cases, that was an example of; is our job in 10 years time going to be turning up in some cases and having this AI opponent that we're to be doing advocacy against? I mean, I don't particularly want to be doing that job, to be honest. And I think this is an area where I'm sure will be more guidance on the judiciary the future.

Orlagh Kelly: You can really imagine a scenario where either counsel, solicitor or a personal litigant could be allowed to stand in court and just generate the answers from a computer to parrot to the judge. That just doesn't seem like that could possibly be allowed. You couldn't prepare a case in advance if new things are being generated. Even if AI got to become a little bit more reliable, just seems, well, listen, it feels to me like that's, you know insanity. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe in 10 years we'll be in a different world, but it feels like it wouldn't be justice.

Alex Ustych: Well, incidentally, in this case, the individual did come up with an entirely new point that was not in any pleadings. I'm pretty sure in the half an hour before the hearing. But I think you're absolutely right as far as solicitors and barristers are concerned, if we're just reading off a screen at that point without applying any judgment, we might as well not be doing the job. What's the point of us? It's more nuanced, I think, with litigants in person and access to justice using technology and AI, something I've spoken about the society for computers and the law. I think it's easy enough for us to say, just go and use a lawyer. But the cost of using a lawyer is so prohibitively high now. What's happened with the hollowing out of civil legal aid is that it's genuinely insane what types of serious cases are not covered by civil legal aid family matters, custody matters. I think I find it quite shocking. And so you can understand that people might actually be better off and probably are better off using a general, some sort of AI to help them understand the law and present their case to an extent. But I think the problem is that those people, much like probably a number of professionals, don't understand what is a suitable system and what are the safeguards you have to take. I think there is, so Sir Geoffrey Vos, the Master of the Rolls, so the head of civil justice at the moment, although I think, and unfortunately, I think he's retiring at the end of this year. He is a hugely switched on person as far as AI and technology is concerned. I think he's been a big driver of digital transformation. And you can, look up online a number of really helpful speeches he gives about impact of AI on lawyers and the judicial system, including judicial decision making. There is one in October you can find and he's got three rules, Three core rules for using AI, which I think I should read out because I think this is good for lawyers, this is good for litigants in person, anyone. First, you need to understand what a large language model is doing before you use it. Secondly, you need to avoid putting private data into a public engine. And thirdly, you need to check what comes out before you use it for any purpose at all. Now, I believe this, litigant I mentioned, firstly, did not understand the limitations of the system or what it did. He definitely put information, his own information . And thirdly, he didn't check, he just read out what it said. But if someone understands the rules and...is offered a system which is a reliable vetted one, like the ones we use for legal research. I think that could help unlock some issues in access to justice with massive backlogs in the justice system at the moment, people having to wait a really significant period of time for resolution, even of small claims, something like, I think a year. So what if, why couldn't we have a system where the Ministry of Justice could license or provide exchange for your issue fee for your claim, access to a system that looks at the facts of your case, gives you some basic advice, says this case is not worth anything or this case is doomed to fail, you're not bound to accept the outcome of it. So it doesn't deny you access to justice, but it might stop some of the claims, which are frankly outrageous, from proceeding, by giving them a reality check without the AI sycophancy because you're using a proper system that's rigorous. And then if the person wants to go ahead, give them a hand with basic drafting of the documents to make sure it's not based on fake case law and things like that. I think the impact of that might be twofold, which is; It would deter some unmeritorious claims clogging up the system. People with unrealistic expectations would think they're going to get tens of thousands for something that's worth, even if they were, hundred pounds, a very common feature in data protection cases. And secondly, it would improve the quality, potentially, of what we deal with in the system and make sure it's not an AI hallucination or AI sycophancy. And I hope, I know that the judicial system is very closely looking at AI and things like that. But I wonder and I hope that someone is looking at that particular issue because I think it could, AI, it can be a positive access to justice. It's not fair to just paint it through a series of anecdotes like one of the ones I gave just now as a bad thing. I think it can be a positive thing.

Orlagh Kelly: Well, and that's very exciting and interesting if there was a mechanism or a programme where that could be introduced would be wonderful. I certainly, we have, because we advise a lot of chambers on subject access requests, particularly first of all, those have become more frequent. And certainly there's lots of different people who want to get access to information that's held by chambers. But what we've noticed that as well as increasing in volume, the actual application and the follow-up letters are becoming incredibly voluminous and they sound very, very professional because they're clearly generated by AI. Now, once you understand GDPR, you can read them and you can see that that is, guess, and I love the phrase AI sycophancy, these people have essentially been given information and a mode of words that makes them think that they have more rights than they do under the legislation. And it requires a genuine expert to be able to push back on that. But it is making life more difficult. In our case, when our clients are chambers and barristers, it's making life more difficult, complicated, expensive in terms of dealing with them. And so that's a pattern certainly that we found that already those type of people who like to understand what their personal data is and often can be vexatious or can be personal litigants are using AI to further enforce the rights that they have or believe that they have under legislation, which puts a burden on businesses and could consequently put a burden on legal profession on the basis that they want to try to take it further, but they do so as a personal litigant as opposed to a represented claimant. And there are probably lots of other areas of law that this type of thing is popping up. For example, you mentioned family law, someone who understandably can't afford, very high rates and hourly rates for solicitors and barristers but are in a custody battle. However, what they're potentially doing at the minute is believing what they're being told and that they've got more of a case than they do and putting more pressure on an already pressurised court system where lawyers ideally would be there to try to resolve and reflect and take away some of that pressure. So it's certainly interesting times. I don't quite know what the answer is but certainly your suggestion that a more reliable source of technology that could support but not falsely empower people might be exactly the right answer if someone could come up with it.

Alex Ustych: Yeah, and I think there's a place for professional regulators, the Bar Council, the Solicitor's Regulation Authority, Law Society, Information Commissioner Office, UK AI Office, to potentially look at having some sort of transparent criteria around different sectors and saying, these are the markers which we expect a reliable, responsible and dependable AI to use to have. And perhaps even as far as some sort of licensing scheme or accreditation so that both as a legal professional and individual, you could say actually this this AI system is going to support me in a way that's been vetted and approved doesn't mean that everything is going to say is going to be absolutely right because my own view is AI doesn't really think it's a predictive model like a very advanced version of your mobile phone text prediction when you're typing. One that billions, tens of billions have been invested in, but nonetheless, it is at this point, and I think most scientists in AI agree, not sentient or thinking in those ways. But there needs to be some guidance given to individuals, I think at the moment it's difficult to blame someone who uses Chat GPT because they've not really been offered either the guidance or a reliable alternative. I'm not talking about systems where you might be using, paying thousands of pounds a year. That's not realistic for someone in that situation, but something that's consumer level. And I think when that comes along, and there are some contenders, and fact, I was going to mention one interesting resource that's worth watching rather than reading, to get introduced to this area. But once that's available, think, and if people then continue using these AI sycophancy tools in legal contexts, and then I think that more judgment can be appropriate. But on one view, we've created as a society a situation where people in desperate need of legal aid, legal help, and specialist help are left without it. And so it's a... perhaps unfair to then sort of complain about the ramifications of that. These people at the end of the day probably doing their best because they don't have other options.

Orlagh Kelly: Yeah, certainly you can think there's a confluence of events over the past couple of decades. It's led to a place where there's a significant gap of availability at a cost effective price of legal services. And it's something that, you know, it's talked about over and over and over again and how legal aid is meant to support that. And it continues to get reduced. Then there's literally a gap in the market, which AI is clearly going to fill one way or the other. So think that you make a very fair point and people will use the tools available to them.

Alex Ustych: Yeah, on the subject of tools and how people will use them potentially as an alternative, even people who have some money for legal representation, I suggest viewers watch a Channel 4 show called, Will AI Take My Job? It's a Dispatches programme on Channel 4. So they've set up a fascinating experiment where I think it's four or five different professionals, including a GP. a fashion photographer, but most relevantly for us, a trainee solicitor, were effectively competing against sort of a weird AI version of themselves. And there was a blind test to assess by sort of an expert in the field, who does it better and which would they go for? So there was a solicitor, a trainee solicitor from, I think it was some sort of, yeah, consumer, like maybe a high street firm, but a good firm as far as I can see, who was up against Garfield AI, which I think is UK's first SRA regulated law firm. And it was a very minor, so small claim dispute with 4,500 pounds. I think it was effectively a small claims, no cost consequences court, a bit of a free for all, but the performance was fascinating. This was judged by a senior solicitor, the particulars of claim created by the AI was considered to be good enough, even though the solicitor's work was better. And there was, it showed more judgment. There was a couple of details missed, but basically it was absolutely doable and usable. But the speed, the solicitor takes something like six or seven hours, the AI produces it in 10 minutes and the cost, it was a hundred pounds for the Garfield AI and was a thousand pounds for the other, for the human version. And the verdict of the client who was, I think, some sort of builder possibly, given those two options with the knowledge that, okay, this one was drafted by AI, even though it was better, the client said, well, I would choose the AI over the human for similar cases in the future. So this is an example, I think, of consumer level AI, which will likely...replace or place a certainly share of the market at the lower end where you know that you are not facing adverse cost bill if is a mess up small claims are very permissive you know you can get away with as a litigant quite a lot and that's that technology is already there and I think what's very important to remember is that as good as the technology is now there's billions, tens of billions being invested into it. I mean, you just have to look at the Google share price, how much of the capital around the world now is invested AI, it will get better. And so if we were having this chat in a year from years time, it's quite possible I would be giving a more pessimistic view of the future of the legal profession than I am now. But at the moment, I don't think that...solicitors and barristers in the more higher value, more sensitive cases, including involving judgment, assessment of witnesses, certainly advocacy are at risk. But I think going forward, it'll be fascinating to see where the technology goes.

Orlagh Kelly: And so bearing that mind, you 12 months, you're sort of suggesting that even within 12 months, could be such a development this technology that you might change your mind about where we're at. What advice would you give to barristers or chambers that are thinking about starting to use AI? Should they desist and stay away from it because there's too many risks? Should they plough ahead in an effort to try to stay up? What do you think with your experience?

Alex Ustych: I'm afraid I don't think that just burying your head in the sand as to AI is an option as a commercial option in the legal market in the next five years time. Unless there's some major AI meltdown, which seems unlikely, I think what's going to happen is clients, solicitor clients and clients of solicitor clients will probably expect legal services providers to be using AI to at least do the sort of things that is easily done by AI. So to give you an example, producing a chronology from a bundle of documents doesn't require much judgment, but it does require many hours of work. Adobe PDF at the moment can produce a hyperlink version of that. Now, do I think that five years time, a solicitor will be happy to be paying a barrister to spend...five or 10 hours doing that, given the tools are available. I think not. And if, if, it's a chambers, you haven't got the AI capability to be more efficient. I can see that you might end up losing your work to other sets or, or in solicitors case, other solicitor firms that do have that capability. So I think every chambers needs to be, whether it's by way of some sort of committee or just interested individuals looking at; What are we going to do? What is viable in our situation? What would our clients expect? Not today, not tomorrow, but in a years time, in two years time. And how do we get ahead of it?

Orlagh Kelly: Just picking up on the advice and the expectations of where we might land in the future, I think it's fair that Chambers and Barristers do need to look at this so that they don't get left behind. As you say, burying your head in the sand is not the answer in this case.

Alex Ustych: Yeah, and I think practical steps to take as a chamber is if I were looking from scratch for some sort of AI adoption in the future, is I would look at the legal research products that I mentioned. I do find that they are very, very useful. And I think that's been the view from across a number of individuals that have used them. What I would say as well is there's guidance now. It's not super specific, but it is there, useful from the Bar council. It was updated in November last year, it's called considerations when using Chat GPT and generative artificial intelligence software based on large language models ,so quite a mouthful. But it identifies, it explains the issues of these systems. It explains some of the steps you can be taking individually to make sure your output to clients is sound and of course, your professional duties, even when you use AI. I would look at...that policy with a view to potentially adopting a chambers AI policy based on what the Bar Council said to ensure that everyone in chambers has at least a basic understanding of AI and the safeguards needed because it's it would be very unfortunate if some members of chambers with less tech awareness might end up putting personal data in these public systems because there isn't a policy against it. Now to be clear not from our chambers I think everyone's spot on with it but, it is possible in some other contexts. I would definitely follow the Master of the Rolls, Sir Geoffrey Vos's three rules, which I mentioned earlier. I would look at potentially having training on AI of some sort, either by AI savvy people internally or packages from external organisations like Briefed and others. And there is going to be some additional guidance coming through the pipeline. For example, the civil justice council last year started working on a document on guidance and using AI by legal representatives for preparing core documents. So very topical and there has to be a way for people in chambers to be circulated that information when it comes out and from a personal data standpoint, so sorry, that's that's a bit my hobby horse but If you start using personal data using AI then you really need to review and document the security around it in an auditable way in case there's ever complaint or cyber attack or anything like that. And you may need to tweak your privacy policy to ensure transparency if if that's the step you take sort of the next level of using AI. But subject to that, I don't think AI is something that, you know, we need to shy away from or fear using. I think you just have to follow the rules, follow the guidance, be responsible. What a question that's often helpful to ask is if something goes wrong. What am I going to say I did to make sure it works safely?

Orlagh Kelly: Absolutely. What steps did I take? And I think for anyone possibly concerned or almost afraid of AI, it would be worth trying AI tools in your personal life, such as you mentioned finding restaurants or recommending holidays or asking a question. I think once you've started to understand the power and you can assess as a personal individual the quality of the answers and how you like them, that's where really the juices start to flow about how AI can assist. in your professional life as well. That would be my advice. Start on a more personal level where you can really, there's a lot less risk. Low stakes as you said earlier on.

Alex Ustych: Yeah, there's an interesting gap between something like 70 % of the adult public using AI now in their day to day. And I think it's considerably lower. I think 25 % sometime last year, probably a bit higher now among legal professionals. So I think it takes a while to get barristers going, I would say, on the new technology, to be honest, we've obviously got the ability to use tech, and we don't want to be left behind. So I wholeheartedly endorse your advice, or just familiarise yourself with how it works, using your own stuff, your own data that you're responsible for. And then once you're more familiar, read the guidance, make sure that your chambers have thought about it, and start using it in a limited way at first. But it is, I do believe, the future. I don't think it's going to be AI Alex 10 years from now, but I think it will be an Alex with a lot of help from AI. And a quote, which maybe to end on that I quite like is, your job's not going to be taken over by AI, it's going to be taken over by someone who knows how to use AI.

Orlagh Kelly: Absolutely, and I couldn't agree more. Well, thank you so much for joining me. I could talk forever on AI data and geek out a little bit on it with you. But that is the end for today for our audience. You and I will continue the conversation. Thank you so much. And I might have you back in a year to reflect on this conversation and to see if any of the predictions came true or where indeed we are then. So thank you very much, Alex. We will see you again.

Alex Ustych: Thanks for having me. Bye.