Lawfare Daily: Why AI Won't Revolutionize Law (At Least Not Yet), with Arvind Narayanan and Justin Curl

The podcast explores the potential impact of AI on the legal profession, questioning whether it will lead to significant cost savings. It challenges the assumption that increased AI capabilities directly translate to better legal services due to structural features within the legal field. The discussion highlights three structural reasons legal services are expensive: law as a credence good, the relative value of legal services, and professional regulations like unauthorized practice of law (UPL). Justin Curl, a law student, and Arvind Narayanan, a computer science professor, discuss regulatory barriers, adversarial dynamics, and the essential need for human involvement as bottlenecks that may prevent AI from revolutionizing legal practice and lowering costs. They also explore potential reforms, including changes to UPL rules and the implementation of regulatory sandboxes.