LITIGATION AND PRACTICE SUPPORT
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Meet the Algorithms: AI Is Joining Your Firm
by Dr. Rosanna Garcia of Vijilent
Meet the Algorithms:
AI Is Joining Your Firm
Have you ever taken the recommendations provided
by Google? Have you ever praised the interventions of your
credit card's fraud department against illegal card use?
Artificial intelligence (AI) informs these daily occurrences. AI
is also prevalent in the legal profession. AI powers ediscovery,
which has been used by legal for well over a decade with
the establishment of the 2006 ediscovery amendments to
the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Yet, opinions on the
usefulness of AI remain divisive. In an April 2016 blog post,
Julie Sobowale of the ABA Journal writes that "[AI] is the
next great hope that will revolutionize the legal profession."
Yet, according to LexisNexis's "The Bellwether Report 2016:
The Riddle of Perception," 87 percent of firms based in the
United Kingdom don't see the advantages of using artificial
intelligence tools to inform decisions. That raises the question
of where AI fits into the legal profession.
What Is Artificial Intelligence?
Lynne Parker, Division Director of Information and Intelligent
Systems for the National Science Foundation, refers to AI as "a
broad set of methods, algorithms and technologies that make
soware 'smart' in a way that may seem human-like to an
outside observer." Machine learning, computer vision (i.e., facial
recognition), natural language processing, emotional intelligence,
and cognitive computing all fall under the umbrella of AI.
The "intelligence" in AI is based on the ability for the
algorithm to improve its precision as it conducts more tasks,
which is very similar to how we as humans get beer at doing
