WASHINGTON, D.C. May 12 (DPI) – Law blogs and news sites are enjoying the latest technology-replacing-people story today as Big Law’s Baker Hostetler announced it has retained “Ross” – an Artificial Intelligence computer who descends from IBM’s Watson – to work in its 50-lawyer bankruptcy department.
It’s apparently the first time an AI computer has been employed by any law firm, notwithstanding the longtime presence of databases like WestLaw and Lexis/Nexis. Both of those well-known databases have used keyword-based algorithms for years. What’s more, so-called E-Discovery has been around for more than a decade.
But the early reaction is that Baker Hostetler is getting nice PR mileage out of the announcement.
Still, bankruptcy law – heavier than most specialties on documentation and discovery – might be well suited to Artificial Intelligence, which can presumably accumulate knowledge, analyze and interact, and ask questions.
Reddit, which picked up the story today, included 350 posted comments, most of which speculated on the long-term impact of AI on the law. (Other sites, such as futurist.com and americanlawyer.com, posted no comments.) Among the most popular:
This could also cause a complete new service to rise up. You could enter details of your case into a website (run by a law firm so it’s covered under privilege) and then for a small fee the AI tells you what your options are and if you have a reasonable case.
The thing about law is that it’s part formula and part discretion. while there are a boat load of rules and cases out there to use as precedent and controlling authority, every case has unique equitable factors that can play into the outcome of the case. so the firms using this are probably just going to just use this as a way to narrow down their research and are still going to rely on other legal databases like westlaw and lexis to make sure they have everything. lawyers like to be thorough.
This will be really interesting to see when 2 firms on either side of the case are using it, I’m not well versed in law but surely imperfect information has an impact on court judgements?
http://futurism.com/artificially-intelligent-lawyer-ross-hired-first-official-law-firm/