{"id":64297,"date":"2024-05-30T16:14:42","date_gmt":"2024-05-30T21:14:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=64297"},"modified":"2024-05-30T16:14:42","modified_gmt":"2024-05-30T21:14:42","slug":"llms-for-judicial-interpretation-of-ordinary-meaning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=64297","title":{"rendered":"LLMs for judicial interpretation of \"ordinary meaning\""},"content":{"rendered":"

Kevin Newsom<\/a> serves as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (of which there are a total of 13 across the country; since they are the next level below the Supreme Court, their practices and opinions are of great importance).<\/p>\r\n

Judge Suggests Courts Should Consider Using \"AI-Powered Large Language Models\" in Interpreting \"Ordinary Meaning\"<\/a>, Eugene Volokh, The Volokh Conspiracy<\/i> | 5.30.2024<\/p>\r\n

That's from Judge Kevin Newsom's concurrence yesterday in Snell v. United Specialty Ins. Co.<\/em><\/a>; the opinion is quite detailed and thoughtful, so people interested in the subject should read the whole thing. Here, though, is the introduction and the conclusion:<\/p>\r\n

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I concur in the Court's judgment and join its opinion in full. I write separately \u2026 simply to pull back the curtain on the process by which I thought through one of the issues in this case\u2014and using my own experience here as backdrop, to make a modest proposal regarding courts' interpretations of the words and phrases used in legal instruments.<\/p>\r\n

Here's the proposal, which I suspect many will reflexively condemn as heresy, but which I promise to unpack if given the chance: Those, like me, who believe that \"ordinary meaning\" is the foundational rule for the evaluation of legal texts should consider\u2014consider<\/em>\u2014whether and how AI-powered large language models like OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini, and Anthropic's Claude might\u2014might<\/em>\u2014inform the interpretive analysis. There, having thought the unthinkable, I've said the unsayable.<\/p>\r\n

Now let me explain myself\u2026.<\/p>\r\n

I think that LLMs have promise. At the very least, it no longer strikes me as ridiculous to think that an LLM like ChatGPT might have something useful to say about the common, everyday meaning of the words and phrases used in legal texts\u2026.<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

Let's see how this plays out in actual practice and in terms of precedent.<\/p>\r\n

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Selected readings<\/b><\/p>\r\n