Mediate.com and ODR.com developed a new Substack, Optimizing Mediation, to optimize the growth of online mediation, including integrating the empowering and optimizing qualities of AI.
Here’s a summary of one of the first articles they posted.
Robert Bergman’s recent article, The Implications of Rapid AI Adoption – Navigating Economic Challenges and Opportunities, offers a sobering message: AI adoption will produce rapid change and there are questions about whether institutions can adapt in time.
Bob is the CEO of Next Level Mediation, which provides mediation services to help parties understand their litigation and business priorities.
To illustrate causal loop analysis, he provides a graphic showing how AI-driven productivity gains can trigger reinforcing positive and negative feedback loops.
On the negative side, he highlights three reinforcing loops. First, a demand collapse loop: job displacement reduces household income, which reduces consumer spending and, in turn, reduces business revenue and job creation. Second, a fiscal strain loop: unemployment reduces tax revenue just when governments need more resources for reskilling and workforce development. Third, a social instability loop: economic anxiety fuels polarization, which undermines business confidence and investment.
At the same time, he identifies balancing forces. Productivity gains can lower costs and increase purchasing power. New industries can emerge around AI infrastructure, ethics, governance, and digital facilitation. Historically, technological revolutions have created new sectors. The question is whether those sectors will mature fast enough.
The central risk is what he calls a timing mismatch. Displacement can occur quickly. Education, retraining, and sector development take longer. During that time, negative loops can intensify before positive ones stabilize the system.
For law and mediation, there may be some foreseeable concrete implications. Some routine tasks will be automated. At the same time, AI literacy, algorithmic accountability, digital process design – as well as deeply human skills such as judgment, empathy, and negotiation presence – may become more valuable.
New disputes will arise around privacy, platform governance, and automated decision systems. AI tools may shift toward compliance, advisory, and platform-based services, requiring digital facilitation, AI-assisted case analysis, cross cultural & tech related disputes.
He concludes: “AI adoption does not automatically lead to economic decline. Nor does it guarantee prosperity. The outcome depends on adoption speed, policy responsiveness, distribution of gains, and labor market flexibility. It depends on human choices. … And that makes the story of AI adoption less a foregone conclusion, and more an unfolding negotiation.”
Take a look at this thoughtful analysis of AI’s potential economic ripple effects and what they may mean for our field.
