On the legal implications of Large Language Model answers: A prompt engineering approach and a view beyond by exploiting Knowledge Graphs

With the recent surge in popularity of Large Language Models (LLMs), there is the rising risk of users blindly trusting the information in the response. Nevertheless, there are cases where the LLM recommends actions that have potential legal implications and this may put the user in danger. We provi...

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Main Authors: George Hannah, Rita T. Sousa, Ioannis Dasoulas, Claudia d’Amato
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2025-01-01
Series:Web Semantics
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Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570826824000295
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author George Hannah
Rita T. Sousa
Ioannis Dasoulas
Claudia d’Amato
author_facet George Hannah
Rita T. Sousa
Ioannis Dasoulas
Claudia d’Amato
author_sort George Hannah
collection DOAJ
description With the recent surge in popularity of Large Language Models (LLMs), there is the rising risk of users blindly trusting the information in the response. Nevertheless, there are cases where the LLM recommends actions that have potential legal implications and this may put the user in danger. We provide an empirical analysis on multiple existing LLMs showing the urgency of the problem. Hence, we propose a first short-term solution, consisting in an approach for isolating these legal issues through prompt engineering. We prove that this solution is able to stem some risks related to legal implications, nonetheless we also highlight some limitations. Hence, we argue on the need for additional knowledge-intensive resources and specifically Knowledge Graphs for fully solving these limitations. For the purpose, we draw our proposal aiming at designing and developing a solution powered by a legal Knowledge Graph (KG) that, besides capturing and alerting the user on possible legal implications coming from the LLM answers, is also able to provide actual evidence for them by supplying citations of the interested laws. We conclude with a brief discussion on the issues that may be needed to solve for building a comprehensive legal Knowledge Graph
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spelling doaj-art-1601d535c00b454892c72f0dffc58d6c2025-01-12T05:24:29ZengElsevierWeb Semantics1570-82682025-01-0184100843On the legal implications of Large Language Model answers: A prompt engineering approach and a view beyond by exploiting Knowledge GraphsGeorge Hannah0Rita T. Sousa1Ioannis Dasoulas2Claudia d’Amato3Department of Computer Science, Brownlow Hill, Liverpool, L69 7ZX, United KingdomData and Web Science Group, B6 26, Mannheim, 68159, Baden-Württemberg, GermanyLeuven.AI – Flanders Make@KULeuven, Oude Markt 13, Leuven, 3000, Vlaams-Brabant, BelgiumDepartment of Computer Science, Via Orabona, 4, Bari, 70126, Italy; Corresponding author.With the recent surge in popularity of Large Language Models (LLMs), there is the rising risk of users blindly trusting the information in the response. Nevertheless, there are cases where the LLM recommends actions that have potential legal implications and this may put the user in danger. We provide an empirical analysis on multiple existing LLMs showing the urgency of the problem. Hence, we propose a first short-term solution, consisting in an approach for isolating these legal issues through prompt engineering. We prove that this solution is able to stem some risks related to legal implications, nonetheless we also highlight some limitations. Hence, we argue on the need for additional knowledge-intensive resources and specifically Knowledge Graphs for fully solving these limitations. For the purpose, we draw our proposal aiming at designing and developing a solution powered by a legal Knowledge Graph (KG) that, besides capturing and alerting the user on possible legal implications coming from the LLM answers, is also able to provide actual evidence for them by supplying citations of the interested laws. We conclude with a brief discussion on the issues that may be needed to solve for building a comprehensive legal Knowledge Graphhttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570826824000295Knowledge GraphLarge Language ModelsPrompt engineeringLegislative texts
spellingShingle George Hannah
Rita T. Sousa
Ioannis Dasoulas
Claudia d’Amato
On the legal implications of Large Language Model answers: A prompt engineering approach and a view beyond by exploiting Knowledge Graphs
Web Semantics
Knowledge Graph
Large Language Models
Prompt engineering
Legislative texts
title On the legal implications of Large Language Model answers: A prompt engineering approach and a view beyond by exploiting Knowledge Graphs
title_full On the legal implications of Large Language Model answers: A prompt engineering approach and a view beyond by exploiting Knowledge Graphs
title_fullStr On the legal implications of Large Language Model answers: A prompt engineering approach and a view beyond by exploiting Knowledge Graphs
title_full_unstemmed On the legal implications of Large Language Model answers: A prompt engineering approach and a view beyond by exploiting Knowledge Graphs
title_short On the legal implications of Large Language Model answers: A prompt engineering approach and a view beyond by exploiting Knowledge Graphs
title_sort on the legal implications of large language model answers a prompt engineering approach and a view beyond by exploiting knowledge graphs
topic Knowledge Graph
Large Language Models
Prompt engineering
Legislative texts
url http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570826824000295
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