Ross: Attorney built on top of IBM's Watson

That's the winning project in the Watson Challenge.

http://metronews.ca/news/toronto/1230021/watson-challenge-wi...

I wonder if the creators where fans of 'Suits'

This sort of device is only applicable for very specific areas of "law". It may work for generalized law questions, retrieval of known legal principals, or even for electronic discovery (data mining) but once you get beyond law school there is a human element. I would like to see a machine come up with a novel means of describing a realworld legal situation.

Ask him to determine whether John Stewart's use of media from other networks (ie fox news) constitutes fair use for purposes of copyright law. That very basic question, answerable by any second year law student, requires image recognition, cultural understanding, even a sense of humor. It cannot be answered from legal databases alone.

Or here is one I get all the time: What constitutes "reasonable security" for a law firm handling client information? How about for a hospital? Or a Bank? No two lawyers will ever agree on those standards. They cannot be gleaned from case law and change every day in response to new threats/technology/needs. I doubt the machine would have much to add.

Or, does a CDN violate the principals of net neutrality? Lol. Have at it R2D2.

Its not meant to replace humans. Its meant to reduce the amount of tedious research work they need to do.

If you reduce the vast tedium of researching stuff in Westlaw/LexisNexis, you can spend more time on your research memo. You can do more actual analysis work. Thus firms can reduce the number of associates they need on staff, because the associates won't be wasting time on wrangling research results.

Yes, you still need a smart human to pose the right questions to Watson.