Report of the 1st Workshop on Generative AI and Law

TL;DR

This report summarizes the inaugural Workshop on Generative AI and Law, highlighting the interdisciplinary challenges, needs for shared knowledge, and a research agenda to address legal issues arising from generative AI systems.

Contribution

It provides a structured overview of the technical, doctrinal, and policy challenges at the intersection of generative AI and law, proposing a collaborative research framework.

Findings

Need for a shared knowledge base and conceptual language

Clarification of generative AI's technical capabilities

Development of a legal issues taxonomy

Abstract

This report presents the takeaways of the inaugural Workshop on Generative AI and Law (GenLaw), held in July 2023. A cross-disciplinary group of practitioners and scholars from computer science and law convened to discuss the technical, doctrinal, and policy challenges presented by law for Generative AI, and by Generative AI for law, with an emphasis on U.S. law in particular. We begin the report with a high-level statement about why Generative AI is both immensely significant and immensely challenging for law. To meet these challenges, we conclude that there is an essential need for 1) a shared knowledge base that provides a common conceptual language for experts across disciplines; 2) clarification of the distinctive technical capabilities of generative-AI systems, as compared and contrasted to other computer and AI systems; 3) a logical taxonomy of the legal issues these systems raise; and, 4) a concrete research agenda to promote collaboration and knowledge-sharing on emerging issues at the intersection of Generative AI and law. In this report, we synthesize the key takeaways from the GenLaw workshop that begin to address these needs. All of the listed authors contributed to the workshop upon which this report is based, but they and their organizations do not necessarily endorse all of the specific claims in this report.