University of Missouri law professor challenges students in AI chatbot showdowns
Renee Henson, a law professor at the University of Missouri, is using chatbots to help her students hone their thinking and argumentation skills, according to the school.
The university reported last week that Henson trained a an artificial intelligence chatbot to act as opposing counsel in a mock negotiation. In the scenario, students are given the goal of coming to an agreement on obtaining documents related to a case.
According to the university, she trained the bot to the “obstructive, aggressive and difficult,” with the aim of pushing into the sort of scenarios they might one day find themselves in when dealing with other lawyers.
“It was an interesting experience where students had to think on their feet in real time,” Henson said. “The opposing counsel was responding in a negative way in this case, and students had to figure out how to handle that. The simulation was not dissimilar from how a real-life opposing counsel would operate. The students really enjoyed that.”
Many universities are seeking novel ways to integrate artificial intelligence into their classrooms and campuses. The University of California, Los Angeles, this month announced an agreement with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into its academic, administrative and research functions.
