Recent media stories have been awash with reports on the impressive writing capabilities of ChatGPT, OpenAI’s artificial intelligence (AI) software. One law professor “co-authored” a paper with the software and tested it on various legal writing tasks.

Nicholas Boyd is an associate with Holland & Knight's Atlanta office. Courtesy photo Nicholas Boyd is an associate with Holland & Knight’s Atlanta office. Courtesy photo

Although the AI is not on par with an experienced attorney, the results suggest that legal writing by robots is no longer the stuff of science fiction. Other professors have noticed students using ChatGPT to write their papers. Sadly, this misconduct is sometimes detected because the AI’s essays are more coherent and better-structured than other undergraduate work. Recently, OpenAI’s CEO predicted that the technology will “eliminate a lot of current jobs.”