In 1980, I wrote a senior thesis paper called “Imagination: A Romantic Ideal.” My investigation then was a critique of the German and English Romantics who, in their zeal to undo the “damage” of Enlightenment Reason, merely erected a new idol: The Imagination.
Through a concrete analysis of Keats and Poe, I discovered a truth that has governed my work ever since: absolute knowledge is a myth. All we truly have is interpretation through rigorous questioning and investigation.
I have spent many years watching the legal industry repeat this cycle. Today, we have a new idol: Artificial Intelligence. Once again, we are exalting the “Machine” as an absolute state, ignoring the human “strangeness within ourselves” that prevents us from seeing the world as it really is when we engage with it.
The Great Delusion: AI as Insurance
Most current “Legal AI” initiatives are not investigations; they are Insurance Policies.
Institutional leaders are exalting “Legal AI” as a new idol that promises to solve problems without the friction of human change. They seek the “ease” of the machine to avoid the hard work of thinking. Insurance is comfortable and might help you keep your job for a while. It is also a race to the middle.
The Lab’s Pursuit: The Forensic Edge
At the Kennedy Idea Propulsion Laboratory, my experiments are centered on the Human in the Loop.
I don’t ask what the AI can do for us.I investigate what happens in the “interconnections with material reality” when a high-functioning human mind and an AI model interact. I am looking for the unique insight and edge revealed only when you stop asking AI to be an oracle and start using it as a forensic tool for a human-led inquest. In 1980, I argued that the true relation between mind and object is one where the “mind interacts with and contributes to its environment.” That was a precursor to the human-in-the-loop perspective and skillset we need today.
The Gravity Floors
To see the world as it really is, you must first clear away the layers of “meaning” and vendor hype we project onto our tools.
To clear the space for the Human-AI research and experimentation I’ll be doing at Kennedy Idea Propulsion, I am no longer accepting “quick chats” or standard consulting. My focus is exclusively on Wicked Problems and Systems, those environments where variables are contradictory, stakeholders are misaligned, and the cost of being wrong outweighs the cost of the truth.
To protect the depth of these investigations, the following commitment floors are in effect:
- Generative Exchanges (Keynotes): $35,000. High-intensity intellectual provocations designed to shift a leadership tier’s perspective.
- Preliminary Inquests (Diagnostics): $50,000. A forensic biopsy of a single Wicked System. You do not receive a generic report. You receive a Decision Map of a clear path to capturing the edge your current AI strategy is missing.
The Investigation Begins
Tomorrow, I will be walking into a classroom at the University of Michigan Law School to teach a new generation of investigators in my Legal Technology Literacy and Leadership course. We will be moving away from idealist positions and looking for the practical interconnections between the analytic mind and the material world.
The Inquest is open. The game is afoot.
[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (https://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]
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