I met Andrew Hogan at Bar school in 1995. Back in the day, like Tony Blair, we were the future. We have remained in touch, catching up with each other in various robing rooms and Inn events down the years. It is my pleasure to commend his handbook, Andrew and the Marvellous Analytical Engine.

If you are at risk of letting modernity pass you by, this is the book for you. Andrew brings you up to speed on all things artificial intelligence related. You get a fascinating primer on the history of computers from Babbage, Lovelace, Turing and the ZX spectrum to the present day.

The striking feature for me is that the exponential development in the history of computers has happened in the time Andrew and I have been plying our trade at the Bar. Computers have got smaller and faster while correspondingly the years have taken their dreadful toll on us.

With the historical context having set the scene, the book moves on to explain AI and its modern iteration, generative text models and how they are about to subsume us in a fourth industrial revolution.

Andrew clearly likes tinkering. We are taken on tours of the inside of his ZX81. With a thin excuse, he opens up his current computer. He explains what is going on under the bonnet. We discover how software has developed and how it relates to the hardware. He explains computer programming and how that relates to the ‘prompt craft’ of instructing ChatGPT and its ilk. He has played with all of the modern AI related programmes that a lawyer might want to understand. He explains their pros and cons and their current uses and potential uses to the craft of the Bar.

Two particular issues are teased out for the uninitiated. The first is the importance of understanding what stays on the right side of current data protection requirements and what does not. It seems much of what is out there at present is yet to be configured to allow lawyers to deploy for client-based work. But that is changing fast. Second, and no doubt to the relief of many of a certain age, generative text models will not replace the Bar. They have the capacity to become our faithful assistants, co-pilots if you like, speeding up mundane tasks whilst leaving us to add the magic dust of judgement and direction.

Andrew also spends a helpful chapter explaining the importance of ‘prompt craft’. Asking better questions will elicit better answers. Who knew. Asking the right question sounds like something that the Bar should just about be able to cope with.

Many of Andrew’s illustrations as to how AI will impact the Bar are drawn from his area of practice, costs litigation. Andrew is a leading junior and no doubt destined for greater professional glories. He has an engaging enthusiasm for costs litigation and the endless areas of controversy there are to explore. I am not normally considered a slouch in my own field of endeavour (financial remedies) but Andrew’s passion for costs litigation and the AI assisted future of practice, I will confess, has left me standing.

Andrew and the Marvellous Analytical Engine can be read in two or three sittings and by the end of it you will feel ready to face modernity, even if you are not quite emotionally ready to embrace it.