Artificial Intelligence in the Legal System?
The Boston Globe has an interesting piece on the potential application of Artificial Intelligence to the legal profession. Drake Bennett writes that:
[c]omputer judges, of course, aren’t going to be ascending to the bench in the foreseeable future. ‘’Nobody thinks that’s a good idea,” says Carole D. Hafner, a Northeastern University computer scientist and pioneer in using artificial intelligence to study the law. Judging, and most especially Supreme Court judging, is a complex and subtle mix of imagination, acuity, and political calculation. Still, at a time when doctors are starting to use software to aid in their diagnoses and when hedge funds are using computer models to make multibillion-dollar investment decisions, there is growing interest–even in an American legal establishment usually resistant to change–in finding ways to incorporate artificial intelligence into the law.
Okay, let’s just assume that the legal profession isn’t already full of artificial intelligence. Come on, go with me on this.
And we can agree that “court judging” is a complex and subtle mix of something — insert your own joke here — but “imagination, acuity, and political calculation?” I’m a former law clerk, and I’ve analyzed more than a few opinions. I’ve seen opinions that run the gamut of clarity, from perfectly pithy and precise (the ones ghost-written by me, of course!), to over-winded, tangential ramblings that serve only to raise more questions than they answer. And I’m not sure that imagination or political calculation really have much, if any, place in a court opinion.
The law is complicated and multi-farious, though, and I’m not sure that AI is well-suited for it. Still, the idea has a peculiar appeal, at least to the statutorily-based practitioners like tax attorneys (who, by the way, are a wild bunch). Just give these guys a set of facts, and they’ll start at the 101 statute and read their way through the dense material like it’s computer code, triggering a certain consequence here, referring to a definition there, and returning a result. See? I told you they were wild.
But for those other lawyers, those master manipulators of abstractions, the idea is almost laughable. Code may be able to mimic statutory analysis, but can it juggle the wind?
Anyway, the article refers to a couple of early products on the market, which, at the least, sound like fun:
The computer scientists John Zeleznikow of the University of Melbourne and Andrew Stranieri of the University of Ballarat, for example, have developed two pieces of legal software currently in use in their native Australia. One, SplitUp, calculates with impressive accuracy the likely results of divorce proceedings–its effect has been to encourage settlements, thus preventing unnecessary litigation. Another, GetAid, is used by an Australian government agency to appraise applicants for legal aid–a complicated calculation based on employment history, household income, the likelihood that the case will be won, and myriad other factors.
You can find Split-Up, which has apparently hired some marketing folks whose first task was to rename the product Family Law Software, here. Check out the picture on the front page. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Okay, look at the lawyer (you can tell he’s a lawyer by the tell-tale Wall of Gold-Embossed Solemn-Looking Tomes just behind him). He looks like he’s about to dive across the polished cherrywood desk to keep the clients (you can tell they’re clients because they have their hands on their wallets) (it’s hidden from view!) from clawing each other’s eyes out. Can a computer do that?
I wasn’t able to find a link to GetAid, but while looking, I did find this piece from The Economist. It’s opening lines are much more fun than any link to a software program would have been anyway:
GIVEN the choice, who would you rather trust to safeguard your future: a bloodsucking lawyer or a cold, calculating computer? Granted, it’s not much of a choice, since neither lawyers nor computers are renowned for their compassion.
Hey!
