Don’t Trust Chatbots With Your Estate Plan
It is a scary thought that today’s kindergarteners have never known a world without large language models that could generate volumes of natural sounding text through generative artificial intelligence (AI). The implications of this are scary enough to take your mind off of your own mortality. You might even feel tempted to start working on your estate plan just to distract you from the disturbing thought of how bad things could be for the generations after you. You might even think about how best to use your money to help your descendants who will one day have to fend for themselves, without you, in an AI chatbot-ruled dystopia. You might be the last generation to have the luxury of employment income, but you are not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. Yes, opportunities have been key to your current state of financial stability, but frugality also plays a role. Therefore, you are wise enough to know that you need help with your estate plan, and you have the presence of mind not to turn to generative AI for help. If you need a human being to give you guidance about your estate plan, contact a Bronx estate planning lawyer.
What Would Happen If Generative AI Wrote Your Will?
A last will and testament is a formulaic document, the kind that, at least in theory, is easy to create without help from a lawyer. Long before there was Chat GPT, you could download will templates from DIY legal document websites and use your geriatric word processing skills to fill them in. The result was a legally valid will, but one that, at best, lacked subtlety, and at worst, provided for things that contradicted your wishes. The probate court must follow the letter of the will and not circumvent it to make inferences about what the testator’s wishes might have been.
Fast forward to today, where large language models can and do compose documents that meet the formal requirements to make them legally binding. The problem is that it composes them unthinkingly; it simply remixes its source material, with no concept of the implications. This is why legal memorandums written by generative AI sometimes contain citations for cases that do not exist. The citations look real; no one knows that they are not. You can prompt Chat GPT to write your will, and it might say that your daughter Bronwyn is to inherit your condominium unit on Biscayne Island, even though you have neither a daughter nor real estate property in Florida.
The prospect of Chat GPT parceling out your non-existent property to your non-existent relatives is only the worst-case scenario, but even lesser AI hallucinations can leave your probate case in a pickle. Do not take that risk. Even if you are exceptionally frugal, at least ask a human lawyer to review your will before you sign it.
Schedule a Confidential Consultation With a Bronx Estate Planning Attorney
An estate planning lawyer can help you draft or review your will and think through it as only human intelligence can. Contact Cavallo & Cavallo in the Bronx, New York to set up a consultation.
Source:
fastwill.com/estate-planning-guide/wills/how-to-use-ai-to-make-a-will-without-a-lawyer#:~:text=Most%20AI%2Dpowered%20will%2Dmaking%20tools%20will%20provide%20you%20with,to%20e%2Dsign%20will%20documents.