I was recently workshopping a message to include in a legal AI lunch keynote. I looked to draw a parallel between LLMs and other foundational innovations, in suggesting the ultimate revolution is in what further creations they enable, much more so than in the capabilities they provide on their own. Here’s a sampling of the thoughts that came to mind:

– Throughout history, humans have built complex systems from basic elements, driving progress across various fields through both breakthroughs as well as through gradual development and refinement.

– In chemistry, understanding atoms and bonds revolutionized materials and medicine. From physics our understanding of electromagnetism brought forth modern electronics and so much more. And biology’s discovery of DNA structure opened up genetic engineering and personalized medicine.

– These examples show how fundamental discoveries can exponentially expand possibilities. Of course, it’s not a simple, linear process. Innovation is shaped by societal needs, economic factors, existing knowledge, and cross-disciplinary collaboration.

– Computer science uses layers of abstraction, building complex software from simple logic. And even without everything that fits under the broad umbrella of AI, the achievements enabled through process, automation, logic and computing power are both enormous and astonishing.

– While LLMs fit within and are enabled and improved by many discoveries under the AI and computer science umbrellas, the innovations enabling language to serve as a representation of knowledge and as a key that unlocks understanding, reasoning and action at an unfathomable scale may prove to position the developments around language models of the past few years as a foundational innovation on par with other discoveries that created inflection points in human history

– We are at the earliest days in exploring how to apply these new powers. Yes, there are limitations and there will be problems, but those who focus on the challenges as a reason to delay exploring are missing out on the benefits of what they can deliver now. And for every person excited about obvious applications, there is someone imagining what it can do next.

– The experience and change since the release of chatGPT nearly two years ago will pale in comparison to the changes ahead in even the next few months, as wave after wave of innovator not only imagines, but builds what was only recently unimaginable as they combine the new insights and opportunities unlocked through LLMs with knowledge, systems, tools and processes that currently make up the way we learn, work and live today.

While you’re here, poke around this blog and site, and you’ll see why I talk about these things, what I think, what I do to help. You might also be curious about LawQi.