ABSTRACT
Today's technologies are developing and changing day by day. The effects of these changes are felt in the field of law as in other fields. In this study, firstly, the development of the digital world, new technological advances such as VR/AR technologies, metaverse and artificial intelligence-based software will be discussed. Then, the concept of legal technology will be addressed and the positive and negative effects of these technologies on the legal profession and various fields of law will be discussed. Furthermore, solutions will be offered to the emerging problems and it will be emphasized which elements will gain importance in legal professions in the future. In addition, the approach of our country and other countries to these developments and the recent increase in online courts will also be evaluated.
Keywords:
Technological developments, legal technology, artificial intelligence and law, digitalization, virtual court.
1. INTRODUCTION
Technology has a constantly changing and developing structure. Especially in the 21st century, it reaches a new dimension every year and opens the doors of the space age. Keeping up with this rapid development has become a necessity for individuals and organizations. As technology users, we are trying to adapt to a new technology every year and we have to adopt these changes. These individual changes are reflected in the sectors over time and bring about a social transformation.
The pandemic period we have recently experienced is one of the most concrete examples of this. In this process, areas such as education, health, justice and trade were forced to digital transformation, and sectors that could not keep up with this change suffered great losses.
The field of law has been one of the areas most affected by these changes. The legal sector has had to keep up with the pace, even if it has not fully embraced the emerging technologies. In this study, the effects of technology on legal professions and the legal system in general will be discussed, and the opportunities and risks that innovations such as artificial intelligence, metaverse, VR/AR bring to law will be examined.
2. An Overview of New Innovations in Changing and Developing Technology
The Concept of Legal Technology
Legal technology is a generic name for innovative technologies that can be used in lawyering and other legal professions. These technologies aim to facilitate access to justice, reduce costs and make legal proceedings faster and more efficient.
Legal technologies can be broadly categorized into three main categories:
Legal Automation Systems: Software that facilitates routine legal work such as litigation, document management, contract review.
Artificial Intelligence Powered Legal Services: Artificial intelligence applications that enable lawyers to analyze legal texts, quickly scan legal documents and create decision support systems.
Virtual Courts and Digital Legal Platforms: Systems that enable online hearings and digitalize judicial processes.
These technologies are dramatically changing the legal profession and requiring legal professionals to acquire new skills. Keeping pace with the digital transformation of law has become an inevitable necessity for both individuals and organizations.
The first group of legal technologies can be described as a group of assistants for simpler, time-consuming tasks. Although there are currently limited examples, their number is growing and the number of users is increasing day by day. This software can help with a variety of tasks such as document translation, electronic filing, helping to detect errors in contracts, and reviewing previously existing decisions.
The second group of technology is the one that does more work. Do Not Pay1 (the first robot lawyer website) is the most popular at the moment because it uses artificial intelligence technology to draft petitions like a lawyer with the latest software they have developed. The aim of Do Not Pay is to find a robotic solution by developing a simple interface that can object to simple parking tickets, bank bills, spam calls, which can happen to everyone, and thus find a robotic solution to them, and in this way, it aims to ensure that these works are done in a much more affordable budget and in a short time.
Another example is Legal Zoom2, which provides online support for starting a business, investing, real estate, trademarking, etc., and thanks to the system they have created, people can get the legal support they need instantly and much cheaper.
The third group of technologies has reached a very different level. These technologies can predict similar concrete cases up to a certain percentage by analyzing previous decisions. Because they are AI-powered, they can use learning mechanisms to write a petition based on the available data and even determine the winning rate of the petition. However, since the use of this software is still in the development phase
They are far from being the choice of users for now, but they are expected to become popular thanks to new artificial intelligence software.
What is the State of Legal Technologies in Turkey?
In our country, the use of first generation assistant technologies has increased and the foundations of second and third generation technologies have been laid by entrepreneurs. Examples of second and third generation assistants include turklex, justice lady software for now, and the spread of these initiatives will increase when they receive sufficient support and demand. Examples of first generation assistants include Lexpera, decision search engines, Kazancı, UYAP, Celse, Duty Lawyer Application, etahsilat, various legal forms
Artificial Intelligence Concept
The concept of artificial intelligence is the biggest sign that a new point has been reached in human history. Artificial intelligence is a learning computer system developed to perform tasks that require human intelligence such as speaking, decision-making, analyzing, recognizing, identifying and understanding. Thanks to this artificial intelligence, it is aimed to make the machines produced intelligent and put them at the service of humanity. The concept of artificial intelligence was first discussed in the “Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence ”3 presented in 1955 by John McCarthy, a professor of Mathematics, and has experienced many changes since then and continues to do so. It is possible to see the effects of this change everywhere, for example, we know that there are many examples such as autonomous vehicles, automatic vacuum cleaners, smart home appliances and many more.
What have been the effects of this change on the science of law?
Thanks to the acceleration of the use of Artificial Intelligence and its impact and transformation on society, law has followed these developments and started a new transformation. However, the transformation in law has not caught up with the speed of technology, and the most important reason for this has been the existence of legal, philosophical and ethical debates. The head of these legal debates has been the legal characterization of artificial intelligence. Is artificial intelligence a natural or legal person or a property or a new type of status such as the European Parliament's proposal for the status of “electronic personality” in 20174 ? There is currently no clear answer to this question.
The issue of legal and criminal liability of Artificial Intelligence has not yet received a clear answer. Some authors argue that artificial intelligence cannot be sanctioned by existing laws and that new theories should be developed.
5It is also said that AI will be criminally liable when it has equal rights and responsibilities with humans.
Another reason for discussions on the use of artificial intelligence in the field of law is ethical and philosophical issues. In order to solve these problems, the High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence (AI HLEG) of the European Commission published on April 8, 2019 ‘Ethical Guidelines for Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence'7 under the title of 'Ethical Guidelines for Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence’:
- Respect all applicable laws and regulations.
- Respect ethical principles and values.
- To be robust/strong, taking into account both the technical and social environment.
However, these regulations are quite inadequate and new studies should continue.
Is it Possible to Have Robot Judges with Artificial Intelligence Systems?
Watson, an artificial intelligence, was able to read and analyze one million pages in one minute. One of the most recent developments in artificial intelligence is that it correctly predicted the verdict in 79 percent of the cases heard at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). These developments show that one of the most debated issues today is the question “Can there be robot judges?”.
Are artificial intelligence judges going to make judges obsolete?
One of the most important features of artificial intelligence is that it can process a lot of data quickly and make predictions and decisions based on this data. However, it should not be forgotten that artificial intelligence is also a human product and everything that is a human product is likely to have an error rate. It is necessary to be careful when entrusting human life to these machines. Although the error rate can be reduced with experience and knowledge, it cannot be completely eliminated. It is certain that the error rates made today will be reduced with the developing technology.
Another risk factor in the use of artificial intelligence in the field of law is intangible emotions and psychological conditions. Since these factors are quite difficult to enter and analyze as data, it is more likely and logical to consider artificial intelligence as an auxiliary activity.
Artificial intelligence is result-oriented; you ask for information and it gets it. However, it cannot show the process of accessing information. For this reason, when used in the legal field, not disclosing the decision-making process can create uncertainties and lead to various mistakes by undermining trust while disrupting transparency.
Algorithmic decision-makers, which form the basis of artificial intelligence applications and promise a higher rate of success compared to human-centered decision-making mechanisms, have given rise to the concept of “algorithmic justice” in the legal world. This concept has raised questions such as whether algorithms can be fair and whether justice, which is essentially abstract in nature, can be calculated with concrete data.
Justice and law, like mathematics, are not concepts that always lead to a single truth. Justice requires human characteristics such as conscience, instinct, judgment and interpretation. These needs cannot be met by an artificial machine. For these reasons, it does not seem possible and logical to use artificial intelligence instead of lawyers and other legal professions. However, the use of artificial intelligence-supported products as auxiliary assistants will provide time savings, speed and efficiency.
The adoption of such technological solutions in the legal community can make a great contribution to overcoming the speed problem in the judiciary, especially in our country. Artificial intelligence-supported legal systems should be further supported and developed. As seen today, we are entering a new era of technology and the use of such systems is becoming inevitable.
New version of Artificial Intelligence “CHAT GPT-4”
Chat GPT is a super robotic chat system based on artificial intelligence. This robotic chat system processes and answers the questions asked to it just like a human. It performs the given tasks in the desired language and manner within seconds, but in this case, it leaves us with one of the biggest problems. The answers to the questions asked to this chatbot are often answered without citing the source and many copyrights are violated in this way. The reason for this behavior is that artificial intelligence is result-oriented. The artificial intelligence system does not clearly show the information while processing the information, but only reflects the result, so it is not understood where and how which information was received, or what are the reasons for this chatbot's decision-making process continues to maintain its secrecy on these issues.
One of the areas where Chat GPT-4 has shown the most improvement has been law. It passed the bar exams with 90% more success than the previous version, Chat GPT 3.5. The Times newspaper also reported that GPT-4 has become capable of drafting cases.
From all these developments, it should not be thought that these robots will replace lawyers because the problems that this system will bring along with it. In this system, the confidentiality and security of the data is not ensured because in this system, as the working principle of artificial intelligence, you must first provide it with information and train it, and since it is shaped according to the current data you provide and the answers given to past data in order to provide the desired performance from artificial intelligence, it has become an inevitable fact that there is a lot of problem in terms of security. Another issue that should not be forgotten is that law is not just a whole consisting of black and white rules. Law is a social field of human experimentation, and there is not always a single truth here, which is why we should be talking about AI robots as the best assistants to humans, not replacing them.
With Chat GPT, new areas where lawyers can improve themselves have emerged and continue to emerge. Namely, in order for these robots to do a job research, lawyers need to ask and question the desired information in the best way. These artificial intelligence-supported robots seem to be the biggest supporters of lawyers. It will be thanks to these robots that the archives will be organized, the work to be done automatically will be given to this robot, the lawyers will have instant correspondence with their clients, and thanks to this tight communication, the desired sense of trust will be given to the clients.
In an article in Forbes magazine, there is a discussion about the misconduct of law firms not using these legal technologies in the future. As can be seen from this, technology has inevitably entered the legal world and it seems likely that its effects will be seen in our country in the near future.
New Technologies Coming Among Us with the Pandemic
The pandemic in 2020 has been an important milestone in our age. The restrictions and measures imposed on countries have opened new areas to our digitalized world and changes have occurred in many areas.
One of these changes is VR/AR technologies. The ability of law to respond to developments in these areas will be through the impact threshold16 , which means that the more people are affected, the more law will start to take place, which will happen in the very near future. Law should be open to developments. These platforms are now part of our real world and law and order is essential.
What is VR/AR (Virtual Reality) Technology?
Virtual reality (VR) is the display of the real world in three dimensions in a computer environment with various codes and software. While virtual reality is a complete immersion into a simulation, augmented reality is slightly different. The simulation created in augmented reality is not a fully immersive simulation. The real world is combined with digital world details. The metaverse is a collective virtual sharing space created by combining this entire digital world. While the use of these technologies has been used extensively in online games, entertainment sector, its use in the business world has increased rapidly and continues to increase in the construction, real estate, tourism, service and health sectors. One of the most common uses of the Metaverse has been the sale of real estate using Non-fungible Token (NFT), a blockchain technology.
With the introduction of these new technologies of our time, legal problems in various areas such as privacy, intellectual property and criminal law have started to emerge, as well as ideas for their solution. The limitations and responsibilities that VR/AR technologies urgently need are being addressed by the intervention of criminal law. Since there is no new regulation yet, such needs are tried to be met by expanding the interpretation of existing regulations, but this still does not meet the need. In our country, the occurrence of these crimes is not yet widespread and it is very difficult to find the perpetrators of these crimes.
Virtual Courts, Audio and Video Trials Era
In 2020, with the transition to the pandemic process announced in 2020, in response to the need for virtual courts, the virtual court procedure has been used in many countries, as in our country, and thus the variety of cases seen has increased. For example, in the UK and the USA, it was made mandatory for all cases to be heard virtually in April 2020.
In terms of our domestic law, when the regulations in our legislation are examined, there are no regulations preventing audio and video hearings, which makes us think that online hearings may increase in the future because transportation has become quite costly and a waste of time. Considering that the density in the courthouses is increasing day by day, it is thought that the transition to the virtual system will relieve this situation in order to eliminate these densities.
Future Law Offices - Technological New Order
In the book “The Future of Law” by the famous author Richard Susskind, it was predicted that e-mail would have a very big place in the legal world, and when Richard emphasized this, it was only 1977. Now, in the new book written by Richard, it is said that the legal sector will transition to online systems, and there are also thoughts that people will be more selective or hesitate to apply to lawyers because of the variety of problem solving that technological developments will bring.21 As can be understood from these thoughts, the legal profession has been subjected to new updates. In the very near future, it is predicted that the majority of the courts will be online platforms, and that lawyers will receive their cases through these online platforms and conduct their meetings with their clients through these platforms. 22 Even now, some lawyers are saving time and space by conducting negotiations such as mediation online without any geographical boundaries.
With the digitalization of offices, multidisciplinary working areas will be created in the office, such that lawyers in every office should now work with a data analyst and software engineers, IT technicians.
As observed in e-commerce areas such as Amazon, customer experience will have a big role in the legal field and competitors will use it. Meeting the expectations of clients instantly and providing quick solutions to their questions and problems will be the first feature, and chatbots and artificial intelligence will play a very important role in realizing this.
A British legal newspaper reported that lawyers in the UK should move to online offices by 2026.23 This will enable lawyers to reduce their costs and expand their client base online.
According to an Oxford University research report, while 2% of lawyers are currently using these current technologies, these technologies will become indispensable for every lawyer in the future and all lawyers and even various legal professions will need to learn how to use these technologies. For this reason, the qualifications that lawyers and legal professionals should have can be listed as follows: Having a level of digital literacy, being able to express oneself and the desired subject on digital platforms in clear languages, being able to quickly adapt to technological developments and new software and systems.
Using VR Technology in Education
Questions such as the feasibility of using virtual courts in legal education have begun to appear in various research papers and have even been experimented with, and there are places today where this style of education is practiced, for example;
It was the virtual version of the fictional litigation competition included in the Aksan Academy 2021 Program organized by Aksan Law Firm. As a result of the applications of third-year students from Turkey's leading law faculties, 40 students selected for the Aksan Academy 2021 Program participated in the project. The students were divided into defendant and plaintiff parties, and held a fictional trial. This year's court was also held in a virtual environment.
As seen in the example, technological innovations have started to be used by various offices in our country and they have even used them in their trainings.
In addition to legal education, lawyers will also be able to use VR technologies to understand how the events described in the petition took place and to prove their claims in courts.
3.Conclusion Evaluation and Recommendations
As a result, although we talk about how technological developments have advanced in our country and in the world, these changes have still not been able to clearly show their impact in the field of law. But this is not what should be understood here. Technology will continue to advance rapidly. In this case, a response to these technological developments should be found in law and a legal ground should be tried to be prepared. At the same time, these developments should not be afraid of having an impact because, as explained, what no artificial intelligence, robot or technology can give is the intangible emotions and states that a human being can give to another human being. The place of lawyers and judges will not be given to such machines, but these machines will be the most used tools of the legal professions, so that justice will be provided in the fairest way by speed and efficiency.
Today, it is quite normal to have various concerns about the proliferation of these technologies. While the innovations may be frightening, they will also be useful. Thanks to these technological transformations, many people will be able to resolve disputes more quickly in ways that were not possible before, and issues that require hours of research will be made available in a short time and efficiently with changing and developing technology. We Lawyers will always progress by reading and improving ourselves, which is the way it should be.
One of the most important things to be done is to abandon the old way of legal education and to technologize it. Law and technology will now be intertwined and if young lawyers can catch this harmony, the infrastructure will be solid and the missing problem of digitalization in law will be eliminated.