AI & The Law

When one thinks of AI, the law is typically not at the top of their mental list. And still, AI deeply impacts the legal field and it is conversely affected by it.

The ethical and legal implication of the degree of automation promised, and often delivered, by AI cannot be overstated. One only has to reflect on topics as diverse as the legal liabilities of self-driving vehicles, the intellectual properties implications of using open source AI datasets and libraries, the privacy concerns involved in using personal data for AI applications (the use of personal data that is bogging down Facebook these days and the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal are top examples of that), and much more.

On the other hand, the legal profession itself is poised to be deeply transformed by AI through natural language processing and generation, semantic search, image processing, data mining, as it becomes more automated and data-driven, with data manipulation and contracting at the top of the list of transformational areas. And yet, only 10% of law firms use AI, as found by a survey conducted in the ABA’s “2018 Legal Technology Survey Report,” with 900 respondents from across the nation and at firms of various sizes.