Jon Van Gorp, chair of global law firm Mayer Brown, uses the lens of deep sea exploration as a metaphor to understand the legal industry’s embracing of generalized artificial intelligence (Gen AI). An avid reader, Van Gorp’s analysis is informed by his recent reading of the book, “The Underworld”.
Van Gorp draws attention to the rapid pace of advancements and discoveries in varied fields, noting that the sentiment of accelerated invention might not be unfounded. He points to the increasing number of patents issued as evidence of this surge. The US Patent Office, in its first hundred years, issued approximately 390,000 patents. In contemporary times, this number closely aligns with the amount of patents dispensed annually.
This heightened pace of invention and discovery isn’t exclusive to tech, science, or deep sea exploration, but also seen markedly within the legal industry itself. With the recent upswing in adoption of Gen AI in legal realms, novel questions analogous to those emerging from deep sea exploration’s advancements are being raised.
To Van Gorp, the comparison between these seemingly distinct domains is instructive, shedding light on the challenges, opportunities, and potential frontiers surfacing owing to the ascendance of Gen AI in the legal sector.
For a deeper dive into Jon Van Gorp’s reflections and insights, feel free to read his analysis as part of a series of book reviews published on The American Lawyer.