R. Carson Fisk is a shareholder at Andrews Myers and is based in Austin, Texas. An actively practicing attorney, he is Board Certified in Construction Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and represents construction industry participants in both contentious (e.g., claims, litigation, arbitration) and non-contentious matters (e.g., contract drafting and negotiation, best practices counseling). Also an active arbitrator and mediator, he is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and a credentialed mediator with the Texas Mediator Credentialing Association.
Fisk is also one of the featured panelist trainers of our AI Arbitrator. He discusses his experience with the tool.
Q. What surprised you most when you first worked with the AI Arbitrator?
The speed and comprehensiveness achieved in a short time are virtually impossible to replicate.
Q. Where did your judgment matter most in shaping or refining the outcome?
Even smaller construction claims can have complexity. That is where the human arbitrator’s knowledge and experience come into play—validating and verifying facts, arguments, and proposed outcomes. The human judgment factor cannot be replicated.
Q. What do you think people misunderstand most about AI-led arbitration?
The human component, and the arbitrator’s judgment, remain an integral part of the process. Decision-making is not outsourced to AI, but rather analysis is accelerated, with efficiencies gained. No one is turning outcomes over to a machine. The AI Arbitrator drafts, while a human arbitrator decides. At multiple checkpoints—most importantly, when validating the AI summaries and when the arbitrator examines the proposed analysis and outcome—people remain in control. This framing matters for enforcement and legitimacy, and the award issued is the human arbitrator’s award.
Q. What role do you see AI-assisted decision-making playing in the future of arbitration and dispute resolution?
The scalability of AI-assisted decision-making is very real. If the AAA’s projected time- and cost-savings bear out, expansion to other forms of disputes beyond smaller construction claims is logical and would enable end-users of arbitration to potentially benefit from the speed and cost control afforded by AI-facilitated arbitration.