ChatGPT and Academia - a tense relationship

After the first two days of the IRI§23 conference were primarily about practical usability, as far as the respective streams were related to ChatGPT, the focus on Saturday was on academic topics.

The first was the question of the protectability of language models and their results under copyright law. The answer to the latter is probably complex enough, there would have been no real need for the appeal for a general abolition of copyright in the field of science.

Highly interesting, however, were the reflections on the subject of teaching and on the subject of citation. With regard to teaching, the thesis was put forward without contradiction that the age of "academic homework" is finally over. No teacher can be expected to take responsibility for assignments that are actually written by highly developed chatbots.

And the scientific citation, is it also endangered? - I mean, yes certainly. How should a citation be composed if the result is not repeatable? After all, here there are massive differences in the new technologies compared to the common practice of citing web pages with an exact date of retrieval. But I also wonder if the question is really that prominent. Will there be legions of scientists using ChatGPT to write their papers? If so, then only in marginal areas, and there a copy&paste from Wikipedia should be sufficient. With appropriate reference.

Conclusion: Some questions can be solved, others only in the more distant future. It may be discussed further on academic ground.

Why isn't the study of law in Austria becoming more digital?

In a virtual panel discussion hosted by the Department of Innovation and Digitalization of Law at the University of Vienna (Prof. Nikolaus Forgò), the question was why law studies in 2021 would still be the same as they were 30 or more years ago.

Of course, there are initiatives: ReddyForLaw by MANZ, for example, a multiple-choice-like knowledge check and the most successful app of the market leader. Or Timebite and Studo, both community-driven information platforms. Another example is Lawstar, a marketplace for legal courses. But truly revolutionary is different. Why is that?

I think it is due to the self-image of law schools in Austria and the professional training system as a whole. "Law schools have an interest in placing their students, and as the roles of legal ops increases, they have an opportunity to move their students into those roles," Connie Brenton was recently quoted on the American platform law.com. She is the HR manager at data management and cloud giant NetApp.

In Austria, on the other hand, the faculties continue to insist on the model of teaching fundamental knowledge without taking into account professional qualifications. The several years of follow-up training required to qualify as a judge, lawyer or notary also prove them right. But one thing is clear: Where there is no job-specific training, there will be no knowledge transfer in the areas of digitization, automation or knowledge management.