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Quantitative Legal Prediction – or – How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Start Preparing for the Data Driven Future of the Legal Services Industry
February 18, 2017
Do I have a case? What is our likely exposure? How much is this going to cost? What will happen if we leave this particular provision out of this contract? How can we best staff this particular legal matter? These are core questions asked by sophisticated clients such as general counsels as well as consumers at the retail level. Whether generated by a mental model or a sophisticated algorithm, prediction is a core component of the guidance that lawyers offer. Indeed, it is by generating informed...
February 18, 2017
Do I have a case? What is our likely exposure? How much is this going to cost? What will happen if we leave this particular provision out of this contract? How can we best staff this particular legal matter? These are core questions asked by sophisticated clients such as general counsels as well as consumers at the retail level. Whether generated by a mental model or a sophisticated algorithm, prediction is a core component of the guidance that lawyers offer. Indeed, it is by generating informed...
In a Pittsburgh Casino, AI is Beating Poker Champions
February 18, 2017
The night before his newest poker competition was set to begin, Carnegie Mellon’s Tuomas Sandholm and his PhD student Noam Brown sat down to play a little No Limit Texas Hold’em against the main competition: the artificial intelligence program they designed called “Libratus.” “I was totally wrecked,” Sandholm told The Washington Post. The machine destroyed him. But he is not a serious poker player, so that’s not such a big achievement. For the past 13 days, however, Libratus has been...
February 18, 2017
The night before his newest poker competition was set to begin, Carnegie Mellon’s Tuomas Sandholm and his PhD student Noam Brown sat down to play a little No Limit Texas Hold’em against the main competition: the artificial intelligence program they designed called “Libratus.” “I was totally wrecked,” Sandholm told The Washington Post. The machine destroyed him. But he is not a serious poker player, so that’s not such a big achievement. For the past 13 days, however, Libratus has been...
Facilitating the Discovery of Public Datasets
February 18, 2017
There are many hundreds of data repositories on the Web, providing access to tens of thousands—or millions—of datasets. National and regional governments, scientific publishers and consortia, commercial data providers, and others publish data for fields ranging from social science to life science to high-energy physics to climate science and more. Access to this data is critical to facilitating reproducibility of research results, enabling scientists to build on others’ work, and providing...
February 18, 2017
There are many hundreds of data repositories on the Web, providing access to tens of thousands—or millions—of datasets. National and regional governments, scientific publishers and consortia, commercial data providers, and others publish data for fields ranging from social science to life science to high-energy physics to climate science and more. Access to this data is critical to facilitating reproducibility of research results, enabling scientists to build on others’ work, and providing...
The Mind Bleeds Into the World
February 17, 2017
Coming very soon is going to be augmented reality technology, where you see not only the physical world, but also virtual objects and entities that you perceive in the middle of them. We’ll put on augmented reality glasses and we’ll have augmented entities out there. My face recognition is not so great, but my augmented glasses will tell me, "Ah, that’s John Brockman." A bit of AI inside my augmented reality glasses will recognize people for me. At that level, artificial intelligence will...
February 17, 2017
Coming very soon is going to be augmented reality technology, where you see not only the physical world, but also virtual objects and entities that you perceive in the middle of them. We’ll put on augmented reality glasses and we’ll have augmented entities out there. My face recognition is not so great, but my augmented glasses will tell me, "Ah, that’s John Brockman." A bit of AI inside my augmented reality glasses will recognize people for me. At that level, artificial intelligence will...
Radiate Charisma With a Technique Everyone Should Know
February 17, 2017
People who are mentally quick on their feet are seen as more charismatic by friends, a new study finds. Speed is of the essence, though, the researchers found, while IQ and mental agility were not as vital as they expected. Professor Hippel said: “Although we expected mental speed to predict charisma, we thought that it would be less important than IQ. Instead, we found that how smart people were was less important than how quick they were. So knowing the right answer to a tough...
February 17, 2017
People who are mentally quick on their feet are seen as more charismatic by friends, a new study finds. Speed is of the essence, though, the researchers found, while IQ and mental agility were not as vital as they expected. Professor Hippel said: “Although we expected mental speed to predict charisma, we thought that it would be less important than IQ. Instead, we found that how smart people were was less important than how quick they were. So knowing the right answer to a tough...
The History And Evolution Of Litigation Finance
February 17, 2017
Litigation Financing Develops in the U.S. Prior to the mid-2000s, the U.S. litigation financing industry was largely limited...
February 17, 2017
Litigation Financing Develops in the U.S. Prior to the mid-2000s, the U.S. litigation financing industry was largely limited...
Deep Learning Will Radically Change the Ways We Interact with Technology
February 16, 2017
Over the last half-dozen years, deep learning, a branch of artificial intelligence inspired by the structure of the human brain, has made enormous strides in giving machines the ability to intuit the physical world. At Facebook’s AI lab, they’ve built a deep learning system capable of answering simple questions to which it had never previously been exposed. The Echo, Amazon’s smart speaker, uses deep learning techniques. Three years ago, Microsoft’s chief research officer impressed attendees...
February 16, 2017
Over the last half-dozen years, deep learning, a branch of artificial intelligence inspired by the structure of the human brain, has made enormous strides in giving machines the ability to intuit the physical world. At Facebook’s AI lab, they’ve built a deep learning system capable of answering simple questions to which it had never previously been exposed. The Echo, Amazon’s smart speaker, uses deep learning techniques. Three years ago, Microsoft’s chief research officer impressed attendees...
When An Arbitration Clause Sounds Permissive But Is Not
February 16, 2017
Is an arbitration clause mandatory or permissive when it provides that either party to the contract may elect to submit a dispute to binding arbitration? What if the contract also provides that the right to arbitrate is not exclusive of any other rights that a party has to pursue legal action in an appropriate forum? Such an arbitration clause certainly sounds permissive. But courts have invested a lot of ink addressing the question, and (spoiler alert!) they have more or less consistently...
February 16, 2017
Is an arbitration clause mandatory or permissive when it provides that either party to the contract may elect to submit a dispute to binding arbitration? What if the contract also provides that the right to arbitrate is not exclusive of any other rights that a party has to pursue legal action in an appropriate forum? Such an arbitration clause certainly sounds permissive. But courts have invested a lot of ink addressing the question, and (spoiler alert!) they have more or less consistently...
Are You and the Other Party Talking Past Each Other?
February 16, 2017
You and the opposing attorney or party may be very good communicators yet still not listen to or hear each other. The reason may be your communication styles may be so different that you may perceive each other as annoying or irritating which is not a recipe for negotiation success. If you are a venter and your opponent communicates as an explainer, you may perceive them as lecturing you, belaboring a point, talking down to you or even shaming you or your client. If you are an explainer and your...
February 16, 2017
You and the opposing attorney or party may be very good communicators yet still not listen to or hear each other. The reason may be your communication styles may be so different that you may perceive each other as annoying or irritating which is not a recipe for negotiation success. If you are a venter and your opponent communicates as an explainer, you may perceive them as lecturing you, belaboring a point, talking down to you or even shaming you or your client. If you are an explainer and your...
Lex Machina Releases Two New Breakthrough Apps for Its Award-Winning Legal Analytics Platform
February 15, 2017
Continuing the expansion of its successful Legal Analytics Apps™ offering, Lex Machina™, a LexisNexis company, today...
February 15, 2017
Continuing the expansion of its successful Legal Analytics Apps™ offering, Lex Machina™, a LexisNexis company, today...
