WHAT MACHINE-LEARNING REALLY MEANS FOR THE LAW OFFICE OF THE FUTURE
In his recently featured article in the OBA's JUST Magazine, Sean Lynch, Director, Review Services, explores the meaning of artificial intelligence (AI) in the legal industry by first answering the question: what, exactly, is AI?
"Any advanced analytics system that provides information or insight from data, with limited human involvement, is now being referred to as Artificial Intelligence. The problem is that all of the currently available 'AI' systems necessitate human interfacing to provide those insights."
Written by: Sean Lynch, Ricoh eDiscovery for JUST Magazine
Lawyers are bombarded with commentary that artificial intelligence (AI) is going to either: 1) eliminate the need for many lawyers; or 2) make life so much easier for lawyers that their workloads will be drastically reduced. It smacks of the early advertising campaigns for smartphones: no need to be in the office at all; you can do all of your work from your phone while on the golf course or at the cottage, and so on.
Dr. Paola Cecchi-Dimeglio, behavioural scientist, Senior Research Fellow at Harvard Law School and chair of its Executive Leadership Research Initiative for Women and Minority Attorneys at the Center for the Legal Profession, summarizes that “much of what constitutes AI remains somewhat misunderstood” and that this misunderstanding is problematic as it may limit the benefits that AI has to offer[1].
As with the hyperbole that accompanied the smartphone, the reality of AI is far from both the rosiness and the disaster theories being flung out into the legal market consciousness. Part of the problem with understanding AI is definitional. What, exactly, is AI?...read the full article on oba.org/JUST.
[1] Thomson Reuters Legal Insights, “Ask Dr. Paola: how is AI changing the legal industry?”, Thomson Reuters, https://blogs.thomsonreuters.com/legal-uk/2018/02/07/ask-dr-paola-ai-changing-legal-industry/, (11 October 2018).
