Updated – doing maths and complex graphs early on a Monday morning is bad…..and AL got the initial interpretation of the table wrong. So, here are the calculations again. (And hence some of thoughts related to this in the previous analysis are wrong.) The Goldman Sachs report is here.
If one takes the chart to mean 2.5% of all US employment is at risk of AI automation, and the markers (see below) to represent the amount of all US employment by sector type at risk, then the number is 0.14% of all US employment at AI risk for the legal world – which is about 228,000 people, as total US employment is currently 163,800,000.
There are about 1,322,000 lawyers in the US according to the ABA. So, 228,000 over 1,322,000 = 17.2%
So, in fact, that does indeed seem to indicate a lot lower impact than two years ago when GS said 44% of legal tasks could be automated, but still, 17% of the US legal profession being at risk of AI automation is a big deal.
Of course, being exposed to the risk of job replacement by AI, and it actually happening are two different things entirely – and going back to the earlier version of this article, the point made about the ‘last mile’ and trusting an AI system enough to not need a lawyer to do that work at all is relevant – as that would be a huge leap.
So, overall, the main message is largely the same: AL doesn’t see mass unemployment of lawyers because of AI.
Please ignore the previous version and many thanks to Chris Bridges at Tacit Legal for pointing out the error.
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