Jan Hoffmeister on how advances in artificial intelligence can benefit the legal profession
This year has seen a sharp rise in the world’s interest in artificial intelligence (AI), making it increasingly difficult for the legal sector to ignore the potential disruption it could undergo because of this new phenomenon. Although there are many ways of defining the new technology, AI in its simplest form is the ‘the development of technological systems able to perform tasks that would normally require human intelligence’.
Despite operating in a traditionally conservative sector that many consider to be averse to emerging technologies, several law firms have begun bracing themselves for change resulting from AI rather than risk being left behind. Dentons is more than just a global firm with an ever-expanding presence. It is also highly innovative. With the launch of Nextlaw Labs in 2015, considerable investment has been made in several new technologies, including start-up ROSS Intelligence.
The software, which comes in the form of an app and is powered by IBM Watson, uses natural language processing (NLP) and machine-learning to extract facts from thousands of documents, creating
