For the founders of London-based startup Robin AI, the benefits that artificial intelligence could bring to the legal profession were clear. But headlines focusing on psychedelic precedents that have been drafted and submitted to the courts do not help their case.
Launched in March 2019 by lawyer Richard Robinson and computer scientist James Clough, Robin AI is designed to streamline the contracting process using artificial intelligence, including drafting and reviewing contracts and legal documents. Robinson said he and Clough were inspired by watching developers train AI to play games like AlphaGo and realizing that machines could be taught to understand law and contracts.
Another reason, he said, is to lower the cost of legal services.
“I worked at two large law firms, and during my first week at the firm, I almost fell out of my chair when I saw a bill for a client with my name on it,” Robinson told Decrypt in an interview. “I couldn’t believe how expensive it was. Since my parents couldn’t afford an hour of my time, I wanted to create a business that would leverage technology to lower the cost of legal services. “Basically, that was the goal.”
To achieve this goal, Robin AI announced Wednesday that it has raised $26 million in Series B funding led by Singapore-based investment firm Temasek. As a launch partner of Claude AI developer Anthropic, Robin AI’s technology is based on Claude 2.1.
Other companies participating in the Series B funding include QuantumLight, Plural, and AFG Partners. Robinson said Robin AI had a significant amount of funding from previous investment rounds, but demand, particularly in the U.S., required Robin AI to expand and, as a result, require more investment.
“The majority of our customer base has always been in the United States, but most of our employees have always been in London,” Robinson said. “So it wasn’t easy to manage demand without significant investments in infrastructure.”
Robinson said that as more is learned about the potential of AI, more skilled and expensive talent is needed.
“Then Temasek came along and it was a perfect fit for us,” Robinson said. “They are a huge Asian fund and we want to be a global player. So very quickly we came to a deal.”
When asked why Robin AI decided to join Anthropic over competitor OpenAI, Robinson said Anthropic’s stance on developing safe and responsible AI and creating tools with strict response limits are in line with Robin AI’s safety-focused approach. pointed out.
“We want (Robin AI) to have solid guardrails,” Robinson said. “That was one thing, another thing was we really liked the team. We have been working with them at a deep level since their launch and they have been great colleagues and compatriots for us.”
Generative AI burst into the mainstream last year with the public launch of ChatGPT, and many industries, including the legal industry, have turned to this technology. One aspect of artificial intelligence that still concerns everyone who uses the technology is AI hallucinations.
On Sunday, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts weighed in on the potential and risks of AI in the legal system, saying the technology risks violating privacy and “dehumanizing the law.”
While Robinson acknowledges AI’s propensity for hallucinations, he notes ongoing research and product design focused on catching these errors. Robinson pushes back against the notion that AI will dehumanize legal services, arguing that AI could make legal advice more accessible and affordable, tackling existing barriers faced by many.
In his year-end report, Roberts also pointed out cases where legal experts used AI and also cited cases where AI was hallucinated and did not exist.
Last month, a federal judge required lawyers for former President Donald Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, to show printed evidence after he said he could not confirm the existence of a legal case filed in court documents.
It’s easy to blame technology, but Robinson blames lawyers, saying it’s up to them to do their due diligence.
“That’s just poor lawyering,” Robinson said. “I was a litigator. If you cite an example, you need to make sure it is real. It’s my job to do that. This is the purpose of the bar. “It’s to teach them how to use the tools to administer justice.”
Despite hallucinations about AI and ongoing claims that it will take over the workforce, Robinson said he is optimistic about the future of AI in the legal field, but acknowledges that it may lead to a decline in the number of lawyers.
“This technology is revolutionary,” Robinson said. “If technology is transformative, jobs will be lost. But I think lawyers will be much more efficient in the long run. That means you need fewer lawyers to do the same amount of work, and I think you’ll see that in every industry.”
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.
