[adebtlawyer]

I should have said, do these jobs more efficiently. Maybe I'm naive, but I don't see how a machine that does a "sizable portion" of the work would ever be good enough to be worth using. A human expert would always be needed to check the work.

If the proposition is that this would lead to fewer humans being needed for these jobs, I suppose that could be the case. In my own field, my criticism of automating, say, legal research and writing, is that the time it would take for me to check the work would be nearly the same as doing it myself. I don't see much efficiency gain, which is why I think the only thing that would truly be better than a human would be an AGI.

[jules]

There won't be a sudden replacement that can do everything. It will be like gathering food. The majority of the population used to be involved with gathering food. Then people started to farm. Then instead of human powered ploughs they started to use horse powered ploughs. Then came the engine powered ploughs. Then came automatic seeding machines. Machines that can separate corn from the plants. Etc. Nowadays only a tiny fraction of the population is involved with food production. There are still farmers, but just a couple. We are now in the horse powered plough stage. We have full text search that can go through tons of documents that doctors and lawyers would previously have to search by hand. An assistant to do legal research is essentially just a really good full text search engine, it's a continuum from dumb search engine to smart search engine. We have email. We have electronic systems to keep track of patients and clients. Soon we will have systems that can suggest a diagnosis based on symptoms, and systems that can suggest medical tests to narrow down a list of diagnoses. Systems that can assist clients to write their own standard legal documents. It won't be that suddenly all doctors and lawyers are out of a job, it will be like farming. We still have farmers, but only a couple because they are so efficient.

[learc83]

That's very true.

Also, if you look at most of what's been automated away, there's very little what we would consider (and even what people 40 years ago would have considered) artificial intelligence involved.

If you look at the legal field, what's changed is the means of gathering and disseminating information. Legal researchers can be much more productive with computer searches, and consumers can get access to advice and forms in some cases without the need of direct face time with a lawyer.

Some of the changes weren't even primarily driven by technology at all, but by new ideas for business models. I think that something like legalzoom could have been done with the technology available decades ago (phones, mail, and catalogs).

[x0054]

Manny attorney jobs, especially entry level discovery and research, are being automated out of existence through increased productivity. You may be able to keep your job, but a lot of graduating attorneys in the next few years will not be able to find one.