I get how people on this thread are trying to explain how humans are more capable than AI. I would have been in the same boat if I was new in profession because I would like to bet on my knowledge and capability which in turn will develop a skill which shall be distinct than others.

However, AI has become lot better in the last couple of years and if right context is given, it can give great output in a very short span of time, which humans can't compete. I totally agree that humans can't be replaced completely, but the amount of work a law firm or an in-house department that can do will be more if they use AI. AI is here to stay since its helpful. I am not looking to replace my future hiring plans with AI subscriptions, but I would certainly expect a better work product from team since they have tools at their disposal.

I would suggest young lawyers to spend more time understanding the law and client requirement (by attending more negotiation calls etc.) as that will help you develop your thought process which coupled with technology will make you a better lawyer. Along with that start working on your prompts so that you can give better context to AI. You should be better equipped rather than fight it. I also understand that young lawyers don't have luxury of time due to immense work load, but threat is knocking on our doors, so for the sake of self-preservation see what one can do.

PS: I have spent 10 years in the profession.

As you all may know by now, an internal ChatGPT model has managed to solve a millennium problem, the hardest set of problems in mathematics, in 88 hours. We also have Sam Altman and Dario Amodei, the CEOs of the ChatGPT and Anthropic, calling for government regulation because they believe AI is too powerful to be regulated privately. Think about that for a sec. Private, capitalist companies calling for government intervention. That itself is a scary thought. I'm a 2nd year at a T1 NLU and I'm genuinely concerned about the future of this profession if AI continues to evolve the way it has been evolving. What are yalls opinions and do you think AI genuinely will be a threat to the associate/fresher jobs in the legal industry in ~4 years from now?

You are right to be worried. As someone at a senior level, running a firm that is working with AI to improve - I can tell you that AI as a whole is significantly going to change the landscape for the work to be done.

Just the other day, I was able to put together the first draft of an entire complex agreement using AI. I had to burn about 15K worth of credits, but it was well worth it in that the quality of output was very much worth paying 15K for - and it did that job in about 4 hours - while even a very good PA / SA would have taken atleast a day with no guarantee of quality.

So what does this mean for you and anyone else who is starting out in the profession:
(a) Judgment / understanding context beyond the written text / being able to think deeper and more comprehensively - those will be skills people will look for in the future. So focus on understanding commercial context, understanding different approaches to solving complex problems, understanding why something is the way it is. In my time, you had no way of accessing this knowledge or even knowing what to ask. Today AI can take you quite deep and act as a thought partner.

(b) A natural caveat to that is that lots of juniors and lawyers in training are using AI as a substitute for thinking and understanding, simply because its easy to get answers from AI and then repeat it. This will be the biggest cause of down-fall for young folks coming through. If I ask you for your thought on something and you just repeat what AI told you without understanding (and trust me - we know), then why do I need you - I can just train an AI to respond to me in those situations. So that is what you will need to avoid.

All of the above, notwithstanding, there will always be space for human lawyers - its just that drafting has gotten a lot easier - so I guess that's something. But again - like (a) and (b) above, you have to draft ground-up before you can use AI to do the drafting - so keep in mind as well.

Hope this helps. Happy to answer more questions.