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You are viewing ARCHIVED CONTENT released online between 1 April 2010 and 24 August 2018 or content that has been selectively archived and is no longer active. Content in this archive is NOT UPDATED, and links may not function.Extract from article by Ralph Losey
I expect Grossman and Cormack, and others in the pro-machine camp, to move beyond the advantages of simplicity and also argue safety issues. I expect them to argue that it is safer to rely on AI because a machine is more reliable than a human, in the same way that Google’s self-driving car is safer and more reliable than a human driven car. Of course, unlike driving a car, they still need a human, an attorney, to decide yes or no on relevance, and so they are stuck with human reviewers. They are stuck with a least a partial Hybrid method, albeit one favoring as much as possible the machine side of the partnership. We do not think the pro-machine approach will work with attorneys, nor should it. We think that only an unabashedly pro-human approach like ours is likely to be widely adopted in the legal marketplace.
The goal of the pro-machine approach of Professors Cormack and Grossman, and others, is to minimize human judgments, no matter how skilled, and thereby reduce as much as possible the influence of human error and outright fraud. This is a part of a larger debate in the technology world. We respectfully disagree with this approach, at least in so far as legal document review is concerned. (Personally I tend to agree with it in so far as the driving of automobiles is concerned.) We instead seek enhancement and empowerment of attorneys by technology, including quality controls and fraud detection. See Why the ‘Google Car’ Has No Place in Legal Search. No doubt you will be hearing more about this interesting debate in the coming years. It may well have a significant impact on technology in the law, the quality of justice, and the future of lawyer employment.
