The basic premises of how the economy works have shifted under our feet and the government will have to respond.
Gautam Mukunda – Writer
Can you imagine a medical or legal conversation with Alexa? You’re not far away from smart machine medical and legal assistance.
Another career impacted by automation is the legal profession. Machines can conduct legal research and background work more efficiently and economically than an army of $500 an hour lawyers.
Legal automation already does e-discovery. A machine can search, curate, interpret, and analyze legal documents involved in a lawsuit much faster and cheaper the lawyers. The machine can extract and analyze relative information that is used in millions of documents just as accurately and capably as lawyers.
This is the reason why law schools are seeing diminished attendance. Law school applications are heading south each year reflecting fewer work opportunities, soaring tuition, crushing student debt, and legal automation. Law schools are calling the above disruption:
“revolution in law with the time bomb on their admissions book. … Thirty years ago if you were looking to get on the escalator to upward mobility, you went to business or law school. Today, the law school escalator is broken.”[i]
Work Lesson Earned: Many think that COVID will accelerate career disruptions. Post COVID, the obituary for many professions may go like this:
“It seems likely that the top 10 to 20 percent of any profession — be they computer programmers, civil engineers, musicians, athletes or artists — will continue to do well,” he told me. “What happens to the bottom 20 percent or even 80 percent, if that is the delineation? Will the bottom 80 percent be able to compete effectively against computer systems that are superior to human intelligence?”[ii]
[i] ‘Law Schools Applications Fall As Costs Rise And Jobs Are Cut’, New York Times, January 30, 2013.
[ii] ‘When Technology Sets Off a Populist Revolt’, New York Times, August 29th, 2016.