alt Hacker NewsI think the most likely situation with AI lawyers is simply Jevon's paradox. We'll simply ask for lawyer support in 1000's of more situations where we didn't before.
It's so counter-intuitive that even seasoned AI researchers get it wrong. It happened to radiologists, it's about to happen to Lawyers too [1].
[1]:https://fortune.com/2026/05/04/godfather-of-ai-geoffrey-hint...
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Maybe you are right but I don't think the comparison holds that well. I can't take a scan of myself and send it to some AI because I don't have the hardware. I have to go to some highly consolidated business. But the last time I did something legal with AI there was no such choke point. It walked me through filing a trade mark and I didn't have to leave my desk.
The difference in capital deployed is huge. A common laptop on my desk vs big bucks for a real estate full of medical imaging equipment. If radiology becomes less profitable the industry won't deploy as many imaging machines. Legal doesn't have that moat.
Jevon's paradox is a 19th century economic observation about coal that has turned into a meme that people are using to support the most profound bullshit that they already believe to be true a priori.
Lawyers are exactly the counter example and how stupid this meme is.
If I was convicted of a crime and had access to Claude in jail, of course I would use profoundly more "law research". You wouldn't hire more lawyers though, you would do the law research yourself because you would be empowered to do law research in ways you wouldn't have been able to do previously and an order of magnitude cheaper than a human lawyer.
Food/farming is really the best example of the stupidity of this meme though. As if the increase in farming automation leads to more farmers as opposed to an increase in the consumption/quality/diversity/output of food.
The meme is a category error as it relates to the output vs the paid for human activity.