The Robovocate: How Many Drones Do We Have In Office?

Robot lawyers are unlikely to take on the finer tasks of being a lawyer such as writing eligible briefs, not until there is a major breakthrough in AI

Two movies are my favourites: Star Wars: Rogue 1 and Star Wars – The Last Jedi. What fascinated me the most was the power of humans to reach any supra-mental level and behave like gods, humans, and machines at the same time. What I saw was that besides true intelligence which people view as intangible, the Star Wars franchise propagated that the future lays in intelligence that was tangible and artificial. And, I could very well relate that to the Bhagavad Gita, with Lord Krishna himself delving into this topic when he preaches to his disciple Arjuna, that humans are perishable but not the soul and the soul takes forms differently in different times and migrates into a higher version of forms. Similarly, the intelligence in the universe is not intangible but takes forms from time to time varying from humans to machines, with both having the ability to think. With this, I became interested in the world of artificial intelligence and how it can make human lives a lot simpler, especially in the legal world.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is designing machines that have the ability to think. It is the intelligence of machines. The discussions about the importance of artificial intelligence in our lives have gained momentum in recent years. Whether it is a boon or a bane to the future of human existence is an ongoing debate? The very idea of creating artificial intelligence is to make the lives of humans easier. Researchers of artificial intelligence want to bring in emotional quotient to machines along with general intelligence.

In Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 2, Dick the Butcher offers a simple plan to create chaos and help his band of outsiders ascend to the throne: "Let's kill all the lawyers," he says. While no one is going around murdering lawyers out there, their role may decrease, or in some cases, they may even become redundant, courtesy advances in artificial intelligence (AI). Let's look at these technologies in terms of what we can gain and also what we may lose.

Law Robot

What junior attorneys are supposed to do, i.e., go through piles of legal documents and highlight keywords – AI may soon automate, so much so that bots may be the quasiemployees of tomorrow. Take the case of Ross, a robotic attorney powered in part by IBM's AI Watson to conduct legal research. Over 10 major law firms have hired Ross in the past year. Ross is the closest you can get to working with a human lawyer. Ross is designed to provide specific answers to questions in normal English.

While Ross and Lex Machina are technologies intended to help lawyers, in some areas, they have even started replacing lawyers. Take the case of DoNotPay, a robot lawyer developed by a Brit teen Joshua Browder. Capable of asking questions like "Were you parked illegally due to a medical emergency?", "Were there clear signs?" etc., the bot has helped over 2,15,000 people beat traffic and parking tickets in London, New York, and Seattle. With a recently added function, the bot can even help people demand compensation for delayed flights, do paperwork for government housing aid, etc.

While DoNotPay is only the beginning, robot lawyers are unlikely to take on the finer tasks of being a lawyer such as writing eligible briefs, not until there is a major breakthrough in AI. Then again, in matters of deportation, bankruptcy, and divorce disputes, chatbots may eventually be able to go through thousands of confusing statutes in all their loopholes and exceptions to decide the best way forward.

With the development of AI, robot lawyers may help meet unaddressed legal needs of the poor. As Roland Vogl, Executive Director, Stanford Program in Law, Science and Technology, reportedly said, "Every legal-aid group has to turn people away because there isn't time to process all of the cases. We'll see cases that get navigated through an artificially intelligent computer system, and lawyers will only get involved when it's really necessary." Vogl likened it to TurboTax where if your taxes are straightforward, you use TurboTax else you hire an accountant.

While we may never see a criminal robot lawyer, many states do have judges depending on COMPAS software to set bail and decide whether to grant parole. COMPAS uses survey data collected from over 100 questions including the defendant's age, gender, personal relationships, and criminal history. The creator of COMPAS, Northpointe, refuses to make its algorithm public. More worryingly, a ProPublica study has found that COMPAS is prejudiced against black defendants.

It may seem bizarre to forecast crime on the basis of questionnaires; however, there is a certain fascination about the link between genetics and criminal behaviour. Fact is that brain scans are already in use to determine if violent criminals are likely to re-offend. By a long shot, we may be headed to when our own bodies may be used against us in the justice system.

There may come a time when lawyers, judges, or courtrooms are not required to settle civil disputes. Ronald Collins, Professor, University of Washington School of Law, has created a system for filing, trying, and adjudicating landlord-tenant disagreements using software.

There is even a distant possibility of an entirely automated, omnipresent legal system operated by sensors and pre-agreed-upon contracts. A company called Clause, which deals primarily with industrial clients, is creating "intelligent contracts" which can check whether prearranged conditions have been met or not.

According to futurists, such contracts will only increase in complexity, so much so that one day, when your iPhone through location tracking and text message scanning discovers that you've been unfaithful, divorce papers will automatically be prepared, or the moment your Fitbit detects that you are dead, your will would be executed.

India on the AI Map

In May 2014, IBM acquired AI startup Cognea, which developed a platform for cognitive computing and conversational artificial intelligence. The plan was to integrate it with Watson, IBM's question-answering supercomputer, to facilitate more real conversations with users. Ever since, tech companies such as Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and others have been investing in their own AI efforts while acquiring startups in the space. At the company's annual developer event, Build 2016, Microsoft launched its own bot framework. A month later in April, Facebook too launched its Messenger Platform to build chatbots on. With this, companies across the world got a chance to bring chatbots to leading messaging services such as Skype and Facebook Messenger (along with business services such as Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Office 365) providing virtual agents for AI-powered customer interactions.

Parallel to this transformation, customers have anyway been increasingly adopting virtual assistants like Alexa, Cortana, Siri, Google Assistant, or Bixby and getting comfortable with the idea of 'talking to a virtual person.'

Conclusion

We see many advantages of artificial intelligence in law and the legal profession, but time will tell how we overcome challenges, if any. And, the biggest challenge I see is the cost applied to this vis-à-vis affordability and acceptability worldwide, especially in developing nations.

Disclaimer – The above article displays the author's own views and research from the Internet and does not contain company's views.