The law firm of the future has always been a hot topic for me and I am sure that there are many people out there who love to speculate on the way it may turn around for many of us, for example the death of some of the jobs; and some of them even take the courage to predict the future. In a way, we all know that the best way to predict the future is by looking at the past. The book "Artificial Intelligence an Illustrated History" has shed some light in this regard. It talks about the beginning of the beginnings, from the Medieval Robots and all the way to the Neural Networks, that which we are living in the present moment.
Innovation in technology, as a topic, has always presented a great interest, aside from the fact that it became a very "sexy" field that many people love to relate to. We love to read about innovation, we love to be a part of it, we love to have it present in our day to day life, until it affects us directly.
So, what is "machine learning?" Arthur Lee Samuel was among the first to use this term, which gained audience in 1959. Today, machine learning is one of the major computing methods that enables artificial intelligence. It plays a huge role in the computer vision, speech understanding, autonomous robots, self-driving cars, optical character recognition, providing product recommendation, detecting data breaching and more. All this is great, however, what we need to be aware of is that many forms of machine learning require input data for training and if the input data is biased, incorrect, or even manipulated or malicious, the machine learning approaches can become fallible.
Getting your firm ready for machine learning takes first of all a decision on your end, as the law firm owner, at least for now. One thing we need to be mindful of is that the most important trigger can become not what type of machine learning we are using or relying on, but most importantly if we have great specialists who are doing their due diligence behind the scenes. Although, it can be a great benefit to automate some of the tasks that are directly related to our law firm' efficiency and growth, it is important to know where the machine learning starts and where it ends in relationship to the human learning. These both can work amazingly together, as long as there are strong boundaries set and like in any other type of relationship, each of them takes care of their own side of the street.
What steps did you take to prepare your law firm for machine learning?
by Galina Barbascumpa