AI Takes Center Stage at Legal Week

Thank you so much. I'm thrilled to be here.

Sure. My name is Stacey Blaustein. I'm Cal in the IBM corporate litigation department. I've been there for sixteen years.

I'm also head, eDiscovery attorney there. And I had been in private securities practice before that. I grew up in Westchester and been practicing law for a long time. I don't wanna tell you how long, because, I don't wanna give you my age, but Anyway, I had done private practice litigation for about nineteen years before I went to IBM.

I am. Definitely. Yes.

I think that this is really a pivotal year for eDiscovery in the industry.

And I think that there so much to learn from many, many different people here this year. And I think COVID's behind us, and we're all energized. The weather been pretty good in New York. And I think it's gonna be a great conference, this week.

Well, it's been about a decade, but I also had run the eDiscovery track at the, tech show for the ABA in Chicago. Several years ago. So I go from Weglebe to tech show and back.

I'm sure we did. Yep. Absolutely. Yep.

Yeah. I think they every year at LegalTech has a particular theme. It was Tar and one year. But this year is just an explosion of AI.

AI is center foremost on the stage. And I think, you know, AI is relevant to everybody's practices, whether it's law or you know, any other industry health care. And I think that we're really going to be hearing how AI works What are the different concerns and the issues regarding AI? The ethical, the integrity, the accountability, the audibility, AI.

A lot of us, you know, like, wow, AI is great. Now we can have somebody else take over and do things for us, but There's really still a strong human element that is needed to train AI and to make it ethical. And I think that there'll be discussions about. The guardrails behind AI, but it's really promising.

And I don't think it's gonna replace human beings, but I think it will really augment life. I think it's gonna help expedite critical health care decisions, saving people's lives, I think it's just, for criminal justice and for enforcement.

I think the discovery as well. So there's so many great implications. So I think it's pivotal because I think it's a really exciting advancement in, you know, our technology. And I think that If we can all understand it a little bit more than we did a month ago or a week ago, we can have some ease and understand what's gonna be the real beneficial effect of this technology.

So we are running a trial with the needs discovery vendor in terms of using AI on our Slack data. We are a one of the largest user of slack in the world.

So we are doing a trial to see and compare how the AI with the foundational model and everything will mirror or compare to the actual review of a case that we've already concluded.

So it's really exciting.

So far, it seems to be really spot on. However, there's, you know, a lot iterative efforts that need to be done to make sure that the instructions to the AI really match the instructions to the reviewers. And I think we have to realize that, you know, this is not right right out of the box and you're going to get your, you know, store results. I think it's gonna require a lot of learning and a lot of training and under standing what is necessary. But so far, it's been very effective, and I'm convinced that it's a great tool.

I think that we would run the AI over the data. Which, you know, we had done used TAR or CAL, whatever.

I think it's a lot. I think it's gonna be more precise and more, intelligent. We'd still have reviewers, but I think that just right out of the box, you're cutting out terabytes of data that could not be responsive.

So I do think that I don't think it's gonna replace reviewers, but I think it's going to focus on what really needs to be reviewed. We always do want human eyes on it, and I know generative AI, we are unless it's really restricted to our dataset and does not include anything extraneous.

We're okay with that, but we wanna use AI ethically and make sure that our data is not being combined with another clients that we're not including any kind of information from internet or whatever that really has no relevance in the generative of what what are goals are.

And you don't wanna introduce any bias. Right? And you wanna make sure that your questions aren't biased, and there isn't any bias in the data itself. Absolutely.

Right. Exactly. Exactly. Just like similar to biometrics. I mean, it could be a great use. I'm going to a near port later on, and you know, I signed up for facial recognition. On the other hand, when you're using it at an organizational level, you wanna make sure that there's no bias and right that results our fear.

And And I think that's where we're where we're going now.

I think that I was doing a panel last week on generative AI and one of the things that we spoke about during the panel was the amount of corrections that need to be done to ensure that there's no biases being introduced. And I think that's really the legal, the health care, I think those are two professions in which we're seeing a lot of that. There's been a lot of care being paid to from corporation to law firms to make sure there isn't bias introduced. So, and that's one of the things that you're looking forward to as well learning a legal way. Absolutely. Yeah.

I love teaching people and including people and getting people to the next level.

So I'm gonna taking as much learning as I can. I am also I am intent on getting some AI certification as well. And I would love to go on a journey with my department at IBM as well as other people who are interested and explain what I know and have them be turned on to the idea if if in fact we, you know, think it's a good thing. Particular, I mean, I, I think AI is really gonna help help health care. I think just the massive amounts of data that can help make an informed decision quickly for somebody who has critical health issue or whatever. To me, if if this can save lives, prolong a good quality of life, help find the truth in litigation or in breach incidents or things like that. I will be strong component, and I will share my knowledge and really try to get more and more so I'm on top of it.

Thank you so much. I really enjoyed it. Appreciate it. Thank you. Have a great day.