Consensus

PG Note: Consensus is an AI that, among other things, works to make certain its answers are more reliable than other AI programs produce. The principal way it claims to increase the reliability of its answers is to focus on more reliable sources – academic research articles is what PG found – instead of general information floating around the web.

Question/Prompt: Has no-fault divorce resulted in an increase in the number of divorces in the US?

Consensus Response:

Top 10 papers analyzed

Some studies suggest that no-fault divorce has led to an increase in the number of divorces and changes in living standards post-divorce, while other studies suggest that it had little to no effect on divorce rates or that any increase was offset by better sorting of couples before marriage.

The Divorce Revolution: The Unexpected Social and Economic Consequences for Women and Children in America

No-fault divorce laws in the US have produced a 73% drop in the living standards of divorced women and their children and a 42% rise in the living standards of ex-husbands.

Journal of Marriage and Family, K. Kammeyer et al 489 citations 1986 – Highly Cited

These Boots are Made for Walking’: Why Most Divorce Filers are Women

Yes

No-fault divorce has led to an increase in the number of divorces, with women often filing for divorce and instigating separation, despite financial and social hardship.

American Law and Economics Review

M. Brinig et al. 189 citations 2000 – Highly Cited document

Further Discussion of the Effects of No-Fault Divorce on Divorce Rates

Yes

The new method estimated that around 57,000 extra divorces per year in the US are directly attributable to the implementation of no-fault divorce law.

Journal of Marriage and Family, N. Glenn et al., 19 citations, 1999

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PG Note: The list of studies generated by Consensus continues with further responsive results, each with a title, and the other types of information from the study, date, and number of citations as shown in the first three.

Here’s a link to Consensus, which is in open Beta.

PG’s response to his quick try-out of Consensus is that has the potential to be very useful for its target audience, researchers, by saving a lot of search time and providing an intelligent initial filter that allows the researcher to more quickly identify valuable sources for further examination than a series of Google searches would.

This type of AI search capability would be a slam-dunk useful assistant for attorneys, who have used expensive online legal research systems for a long time.

PG hasn’t stumbled across anything similar from those legal research giants, but then he hasn’t looked.

UPDATE: PG just looked at Lexis, one of his employers from the distant past whose CEO once lectured PG about the internet: horribly disorganized – a complete mess that would never amount to anything.

Lo and behold, Lexis is heavily promoting its AI legal research product, which they promise will provide:

the fastest legal generative AI with conversational search, drafting, summarization, document analysis, and hallucination-free linked legal citations.

It appears that Lexis plans to leave the job of hallucinating to its lawyer/customers.

Or perhaps, legal hallucination is an add-on product available for a small[ish] additional monthly fee.