Three Laws Blog: Law and Artificial Intelligence

Sourdin on Judge v. Robot: "The Rise of Machines Is Upon Us" @TaniaSourdin

Tania Sourdin, University of Newcastle, Newcastle Law School (Australia), has published Judge v Robot: "The Rise of Machines Is Upon Us."

As technology continues to change the way in which we work and function, there are predictions that many aspects of human activity will be replaced by technology and that work activities previously carried out by humans will increasingly be conducted or carried out by replacement technologies. Whilst many human activities have changed over time as a result of human advances, more recent shifts in the context of technological change are likely to have a broader impact on some human functions that have previously been largely undisturbed. In this regard, technology is already changing the practise of law and may for example, reshape the process of judging by either replacing, supporting or supplementing the judicial role. The changes are likely to be significant because the fourth industrial revolution with an unparalleled focussed on artificial intelligence is directed at almost all human activities. As a result, judging, particularly in terms of the adjudicative function, is arguably more susceptible to change than at any point in the last two centuries. Such changes may limit the extent to which humans are engaged in judging with an increasing emphasis on artificial intelligence to deal with smaller civil disputes and the more routine use of related technologies in more complex disputes.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Baker on 2017 A Legal Research Odyssey: Artificial Intelligence as Disruptor @gngrlibrarian

Jamie J. Baker, Texas Tech School of Law, has published 2017 A Legal Research Odyssey: Artificial Intelligence as Disruptor. Here is the abstract.

Cognitive computing is revolutionizing finance through the ability to combine structured and unstructured data and provide precise market analysis. It is also revolutionizing medicine by providing well-informed options for diagnoses. Analogously, ROSS, a progeny of IBM’s Watson, is set to revolutionize the legal field by bringing cognitive computing to legal research. While ROSS is currently being touted as possessing the requisite sophistication to perform effortless legal research, there is a real danger in a technology like ROSS causing premature disruption. As in medicine and finance, cognitive computing has the power to make legal research more efficient. But the technology is not ready to replace the need for law students to learn sound legal research process and strategy. When done properly, legal research is a highly creative skill that requires a deep level of analysis. Law librarians must infuse law students with an understanding of legal research process, as well as instruct on the practical aspects of using artificial intelligence responsibly in the face of algorithmic transparency, the duty of technology competence, malpractice pitfalls, and the unauthorized practice of law.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Delacroix on Ethics, Computer Systems, and the Professions @UCLLaws

Sylvie Delacroix, University College London, has published Ethics, Computer Systems and the Professions. Here is the abstract.

Tomorrow’s “professional workshop” is more likely than not to rely heavily on automated systems, whether they are conceived as mere decision-aids or whether they actually replace professionals in some or most of the tasks they accomplish. Can such systems be designed in such a way as to improve the situational awareness that conditions a professional’s meeting her ethical responsibility ? This paper’s endeavour to answer that question leads to two distinct theses. First, this paper demarcates the professions from other types of expert service providers. In doing so, it makes a keyclaim: of those expert services whose safe delivery is in the public interest, healthcare, legal / financial services and education stand out because they give rise to a very particular type of vulnerability, one that potentially threatens the moral equality of those seeking those services (the particular case of those shaping the architecture conditioning our virtual interactions will also be discussed). The first section of this paper delineates the ethical demands stemming from this vulnerability, which is contrasted to the kind of vulnerability that characterises all lay-expert relationships given their inherent knowledge asymmetry. This contrast turns out to matter both conceptually and normatively: the legitimacy of -so far hypothetical- wholesale replacement of professionals by computer systems indeed hinges upon this contrast between different kinds of vulnerability. When our life is in the hands of an expert, our vulnerability may in some cases be lessened by wholesale AI replacement. Yet when, aside from this “primary” vulnerability, a professional can affect our less tangible ability to be the author of our own lives (in a way that commands respect both from ourselves and others), replacing such professionals with computer systems would imperil our commitment to moral equality – no less. This paper’s second thesis claims that the success criterion for emerging uses of artificial intelligence in the professions should not just be whether they improve the affordability, quality and accountability of the professions’ services (as the Susskinds’ recent The future of the professions suggests). On those three counts, a lot of computer systems are likely to be successful. Yet it will be nothing short of a catastrophe if such systems fail to assist professionals (whom they will be working alongside with) in meeting their particular ethical responsibility. Aside from reducing a professional’s cognitive load, computer systems can be designed in such a way as to challenge routine perceptions and modes of thought, hence improving situational (and ethical) awareness. Yet the instrumental rationality that overwhelmingly presides over computer scientists’ lightning speed progress makes such design choices unlikely. This paper aims to foster much-needed public engagement with the design and shape of automated systems within the professions by introducing key technical concepts and outlining both the challenges and potential uses of such systems.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Very Inappropriate Robot Gavels @igavels

Bloomberg Business News features this piece about robots and their use in domestic relations law. The image would be fine if it pictured a U.S. judge--they use gavels. But it shows a robot in a wig, and U.K. and Canadian judges, for example, don wigs, when they're presiding in court. And they don't use gavels. Nor do Australian judges. 

I'm suggesting a Fifth Law of Robotics: A robot must not use gavels inappropriately. 

Is There Something Special About AI In Law?

From the 3 Geeks and a Law Blog, discussion concerning the focus on AI and the law.  Is there something special about AI in law? This writer thinks not. "AI is a moving target. By the time a technology is commercialized it's no longer considered Artificial Intelligence.  Consequently, we fickle humans are consistently underwhelmed by the promise of AI even as AI fundamentally changes the world around us.  The same is happening in legal right now."

AI and Judicial Decision-Making

AI might be able to predict how judges might rule, based on fact patterns in cases, according to a new paper published in Peer J Computer Science. The paper by Nikolaos Aletras  Dimitrios Tsarapatsania, Daniel Preotiuc-Pietro, and Vasileios Lampos, uses predictive models to analyze these patterns. Read the paper here,  and read more about it here in a Wall Street Journal blogpost by Jacob Gershman. 

Is the Digital Attorney In?

From Legal Futures: ROSS Intelligence, a startup which began as a Canadian student project, may produce the first successful "AI Attorney." The company seems close to launching an application that can manuever through relevant information, analyze it, and produce a legal answer with citations in response to a query in "plain English." Hmmm--better than some human lawyers. 

 

Via @LawDeanHolloway.

A "Real-Life" Robot Lawyer

Want to challenge a parking ticket? It can be a headachy process if you do it on your own, and it can cost a bundle if you want to hire an attorney to do it for you. But a young UK programmer may have just the ticket (pun intended) to help you out, at least in his own country. Joshua Browder's bot helps you through an appeals process that can successfully challenge parking tickets and other minor traffic infractions, says Business Insider.

Mr. Browder, currently a Stanford University student, also says that although the bot works with UK laws, there's a possibility it can help with some US legal problems. He's currently inputting some US law into the programming.  What's the limit of what the Browder bot can or should be able to do? Says Bradley Moss, a DC lawyer, it shouldn't offer legal advice, because after all, it's not human. Well, as some people say, neither are some lawyers.

Barnhizer on the Future of Work

David Barnhizer, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, has published The Future of Work: Apps, Artificial Intelligence, Automation and Androids as Cleveland-Marshall Legal Studies Paper No. 289. Here is the abstract.

The analysis offered here is not a Neo-Luddite rage against “the machine.” As with the oft-stated reproach about paranoia, there sometimes really are situations in which people are “out to get you.” In our current situation the threat is not from people but from the convergence of a set of technological innovations that are and will increasingly have an enormous impact on the nature of work, economic and social inequality and the existence of the middle classes that are so vital to the durability of Western democracy. The fact is that developed nations’ economies such as found in Western Europe and the US are facing a convergence of technologies that fit into Joseph Schumpeter’s idea of “creative destruction” but without the “creative” phase of economic rebirth. The forces and technologies pushing us in this direction are relentless. In a globalized market economy where power and authority are dispersed across borders with nations holding incompatible interests and agendas and policy dictated by unaccountable multilateral institutions we lack the ability to impose limits on what is occurring even if we wanted to. This discussion is only peripherally about law schools and lawyers. Those two institutions are nothing more than derivative manifestations of what is occurring in our larger systems rather than the drivers or creators of economic and political forces. As US law schools experience a dramatic downward shift in applications and enrollments, concerned and increasingly panicked law faculties at many institutions are looking in the wrong direction and at the wrong factors in trying to determine their future. This is because anyone attempting to tease out strategies by which we can adapt to economic change by designing positive plans of action based on past cycles and workplace conditions is chained to a bench in Plato’s Cave — mistaking flickering shadows for concrete reality.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.