As readers will know, the phrase “artificial intelligence” (usually abbreviated “AI”) refers to digital programs that enable computers to understand and respond to live human beings in their own language — in other words, at least to some degree, to think. Generative AI programs are those you can use to create new things, like ideas, products and artwork.

ChatGPT is a new generative AI program issued by its developer, OpenAI, only three months ago, in November 2022. However, it already has tens of millions of users. You can think of ChatGPT as an artificial human brain. It has memorized and understands the entire contents of Wikipedia and a vast amount of additional Internet data (although only through 2022). It is also astoundingly fast and sometimes astoundingly accurate in using these contents to provide, in mere seconds, online English-language responses to oral and written questions addressed to it by individuals and entities.

As readers will know, I’m a lawyer specializing in LLC law and tax. In addition, I teach a course for Granite State College (“GSC”) on how to form New Hampshire businesses, and I teach another course on ethics.

On Monday, I asked ChatGPT to write a brief essay for me on the main types of legal and tax issues that LLC operating agreements should address. ChatGPT gave me a decent answer. I’d give its answer a B.

I asked it to give me a summary of the second sentence of Internal Revenue Code 761(c) (a key provision for multi-member LLCs) on the importance of that sentence for LLC members. It got a C.

I asked it to identify the six main ethical theories in Western philosophy and to state the chief features of each of these theories. It got a B+.

In other words, in my own areas of professional knowledge it delivers a range of results. In LLC law, ChatGPT is OK. In LLC tax, it’s not OK. In moral philosophy, it’s way better than OK.

What is the importance of ChatGPT in your own business or profession? Will ChatGPT replace you? Or, instead, will it enhance the value of your work?

I’ll suggest some answers to these questions in future columns. However, the best person to answer them is, of course, you yourself. If, as you should, you devote some time to them, and if you’re willing to share your answers with me for publication in this column, I’ll be grateful to hear from you.

 

John Cunningham is a lawyer licensed to practice law in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. He is of counsel to the law firm of McLane Middleton, P.A. Contact him at 856-7172 or lawjmc@comcast.net. His website is llc199a.com. For access to all of his Law in the Marketplace columns, visit concordmonitor.com.

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