As Lawyers Snooze, We Lose

June 13, 2024

Artificial intelligence may be William Shakespeare’s biggest fan.  It not only has memorized all of his works, but it also adapts his writings and wisdom to further technology’s strategy of gaining dominion over humanity.

In Act IV, Scene 2 of Henry VI, Part II, rebel leader Jack Cade’s plot against King Henry VI depends on the backing of an ignorant population unaware of its rights and the dangers facing it.  Cade’s chief henchman, Dick the Butcher, famously suggests, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”

No, he wasn’t seething over a recent divorce or child custody battle.  Cade and the Butcher knew that society’s staunchest defenders of the rights of oppressed or powerless people are the officers of the court.  U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens made this point in one of the 1985 decisions he penned, writing, “As a careful reading of that text will reveal, Shakespeare insightfully realized that disposing of lawyers is a step in the direction of a totalitarian form of government.”

Apple announcement

This week, Apple, creator of our iPhones and other gadgetry, launched its “Apple Intelligence” update to its operating system software.  The apocalyptic four largest corporations in the world (Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia, and Alphabet/Google) have locked arms in their quest to make AI all-powerful, and most of all, inescapable.  These four companies are worth almost $11 trillion, and just this week, Apple surpassed Microsoft as the world’s most valuable company. 

This monopoly in commerce, this ongoing grift of our humanity, is being done in broad daylight.  And there was no need for AI to kill all the lawyers (although it will surely take many of their jobs).  The lawyers were sound asleep, disengaged while AI moved its troops into the city.

A recent survey of the Florida Bar Association (I have been a member of the Bar since 1982, ouch) confirms my sad conclusion that the legal profession, in Florida and elsewhere, is asleep at justice’s switch.  The June 2024 edition of The Florida Bar News delivered the sobering news:

1. Only a third of Florida lawyers say their level of understanding generative AI is excellent or good
2. More than 60% do not use generative AI
3. 82% of the respondents predict that AI will significantly impact the legal profession in the near future, and two-thirds have major concerns about the use of AI or don’t trust it.

Meanwhile, Big Tech imposes its AI vision on all of us, individual rights be damned.  Don’t like the AI that Samsung and Apple bake into your cell phones?  Then build your own cell phone! Or go without.  Want to be able to write something on your laptop without AI prodding you with “help”?  Then write code for your own operating system and word processing software – and even then, good luck getting to use it!  Concerned about all of the potential abuses that the highly imitative voice recognition and transcription software can now produce, or the technology that enables teenagers to torment each other with realistic (fake) nude images?  Or AI child pornography?  Stop being a killjoy!  Nobody’s perfect, not even AI!  It’s the latest craze!  Move over, metaverse!

Big Tech bailout coming

Mark my words: Once AI corrupts all our historical record, literature, art, music, education, health care, finances, and more, and once it’s clear that the only beneficiaries of the “economic gains” ushered in are massive corporations and not normal folks like you and me, the government will step in with a huge, trillions-of-dollars fix to remedy AI’s unchecked vandalism.  For every toxic spill there is a lucrative clean-up operation afterwards.

You might counter that one can simply opt-out of AI and its influences.  Yeah, sure.  How did it work with Covid vaccines not being mandatory?  After all, you had the choice to either get vaccinated or not travel, not visit sick relatives in the hospital, not attend college and enjoy student life like the vaccinated kids, not have your children in pre-school, not enter a federal building, or eat in a restaurant. No one was forced, right?

No escape

Let’s all agree to stand up to the lie that a person has the choice to opt out of AI.  Apple Intelligence and Big Tech have made sure AI is here to stay.  The government and our legal profession have done nothing to protect us from AI’s intended omnipotence.  There are no guardrails, there are no meaningful regulations.

To paraphrase Leon Trotsky: You may not be interested in artificial intelligence, but artificial intelligence is interested in you.  

(The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Aging with Dignity and/or its Board of Directors.)