Digital age brought new opportunities and challenges to legal profession: Kovind

Visakhapatnam: Digital age has brought new opportunities as well as challenges to legal profession because digital tools and Artificial Intelligence are fundamentally altering every sphere of life and legal profession is not untouched, former President of India Ram Nath Kovind said. Delivering Dr Justice Sri Katikithala Ramaswamy Endowment Lecture on ‘The legal profession: Opportunities and challenges in the digital age’ at Andhra University Convention Centre in Visakhapatnam on Saturday, Ram Nath said, “First of all, we must confront the fundamental challenge of equitable access. If these powerful tools remain confined to well-funded metropolitan chambers, technology will not democratise justice, it will merely reinforce old inequalities.”

Terming the digital advancement as a two-fold challenge, the former President underlined the need to ensure that the grassroots lawyer in a district court has the same digital resources as the corporate advocate and guarantee that the ordinary citizen is empowered to navigate these new digital corridors of justice. For technology to truly serve society, the former President said, it must break down barriers of distance and language for ordinary citizen. Emphasising that tools of digital age offer great efficiency, he mentioned, “However if we are not cautious, then they can erode the bedrock of our profession.

Generative AI can construct polished, seemingly authoritative prose, while fabricating legal precedents and hallucinating cases with convincing fluency.”

However, a machine, no matter how advanced, cannot be trusted blindly with delicate nuances, profound philosophy and precise terminology of the law.

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The Hans India