legislatures / government / legal

Will we be able to take a quiet walk in the future? Not if this becomes a full-fledged trend.

On 10/01/2019, in Amazon, engineering, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, platforms, policy, robotics, society, trends, by Daniel Christian

UPS just beat out Amazon and Google to become America’s first nationwide drone airline — from businessinsider.com by Rachel Premack

Key points:

The US Department of Transportation said Tuesday it granted its first full Part 135 certification for a drone airline to UPS.
UPS currently conducts drone deliveries at a large hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina.
It will now be able to operate drones anywhere in the country — an industry first.
Another drone operator — Wing, owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet — also has Part 135 certification. But the scope of its operation is limited to Christiansburg, Virginia, about 210 miles southwest of the state capitol Richmond.

From DSC:
Add to that, these delivery bots, drones, pods, and more:

Walgreens to test drone delivery service with Alphabet’s Wing — from cnbc.com by Jasmine Wu
Autonomous robot deliveries are coming to 100 university campuses in the U.S. — from digitaltrends.com by Luke Dormehl
Postmates Gets Go-Ahead to Test Delivery Robot in San Francisco — from interestingengineering.com by Donna Fuscaldo
Amazon patents ‘surveillance as a service’ tech for its delivery drones — from theverge.com by Jon Porter
This futuristic driverless pod will soon be delivering pizza in Texas — from digitaltrends.com by Trevor Mogg
Amazon is creating detailed 3D models of suburbia to train its new delivery robots — from theverge.com by James Vincent

From DSC:
I wonder…will we be able to take a quiet walk in the future? That may not be the case if the building of these armies of drones continues — and becomes a full-fledged trend.

From DSC:
The two postings below show the need for more collaboration and the use of teams:

The future of law and computational technologies: Two sides of the same coin — from legaltechlever.com by Daniel Linna Jr.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

An increasing number of lawyers today work with allied professionals to improve processes, better manage projects, embrace data-driven methods, and leverage technology to improve legal services and systems. Legal-services and lawyer regulations are evolving. And basic technologies and AI are slowly making their way into the legal industry, from legal aid organizations and courts to large law firms, corporate legal departments, and governments.

If we are to realize the potential to improve society with computational technologies, law, regulation, and ethical principles must be front and center at every stage, from problem definition, design, data collection, and data cleaning to training, deployment, and monitoring and maintenance of products and systems. To achieve this, technologists and lawyers must collaborate and share a common vocabulary. Lawyers must learn about technology, and technologists must learn about law. Multidisciplinary teams with a shared commitment to law, regulation, and ethics can proactively address today’s AI challenges, and advance our collaborative problem-solving capabilities to address tomorrow’s increasingly complex problems. Lawyers and technologists must work together to create a better future for everyone.

From DSC:
As with higher education in general, we need more team-based efforts in the legal realm as well as more TrimTab Groups.

What’s a lawyer now? Law’s shift from practice to skill — from forbes.com by Mark Cohen

Excerpts:

Why does this distinction matter? Because law—like so many industries—is undergoing a tectonic shift. It is morphing from a lawyer dominated, practice-centric, labor-intensive guild to a tech-enabled, process and data-driven, multi-disciplinary global industry. The career paths, skills, and expectations of lawyers are changing. So too are how, when, and on what financial terms they are engaged; with whom and from what delivery models they work; their performance metrics, and the resources—human and machine—they collaborate with. Legal practice is shrinking and the business of delivering legal services is expanding rapidly.

Law is no longer the exclusive province of lawyers. Legal knowledge is not the sole element of legal delivery—business and technological competencies are equally important. It’s a new ballgame—one that most lawyers are unprepared for.
…
How did we get here and are legal careers for most a dead end? Spoiler alert: there’s tremendous opportunity in the legal industry. The caveat: all lawyers must have basic business and technological competency whether they pursue practice careers or leverage their legal knowledge as a skill in legal delivery and/or allied professional careers.

Upskilling the legal profession is already a key issue, a requisite for career success. Lawyers must learn new skills like project management, data analytics, deployment of technology, and process design to leverage their legal knowledge. Simply knowing the law will not cut it anymore.

From DSC:
I really appreciate the work of the above two men whose articles I’m highlighting here. I continue to learn a lot from them and am grateful for their work.

That said, just like it’s a lot to expect a faculty member (in higher ed) who teaches online to not only be a subject matter expert, but also to be skilled in teaching, web design, graphic design, navigation design, information design, audio design, video editing, etc…it’s a lot to expect for a lawyer to be a skilled lawyer, business person, and technician. I realize that Mark was only saying a basic level of competency…but even that can be difficult to achieve at times. Why? Because people have different skillsets, passions, and interests. One might be a good lawyer, but not a solid technician…or vice versa. One might be a solid professor, but isn’t very good with graphic design.

Artificial Intelligence in Future and Present [datafloq]

On 09/26/2019, in accessibility / UDL, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Augmented Reality (AR), career development, corporate / business world, digital storytelling, drama/theater, education, education technology, future, game-changing environment, health, ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, IT in HE, law schools, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, legislatures / government / legal, media/film, Mixed Reality (MR), Natural Language Processing (NLP), personalized/customized learning, platforms, society, story, storytelling, student-related, United States, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Artificial Intelligence in Future and Present — from datafloq.com
A look at what AI might do and what it can actually do in various industries…

Artificial Intelligence and Medicine
Artificial Intelligence and Finance
Artificial Intelligence and Manufacturing
Artificial Intelligence and Media & Entertainment
Artificial Intelligence and Education

Another automated delivery service / pilot…hmm…

On 09/25/2019, in 21st century, Amazon, dangers of the status quo, emerging technologies, engineering, entrepreneurship, Google, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, platforms, robotics, society, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, tools, United States, by Daniel Christian

Walgreens to test drone delivery service with Alphabet’s Wing — from cnbc.com by Jasmine Wu

Key Points:

Walgreens is working with Alphabet’s drone delivery service Wing to test a new service.
The pilot program will deliver food and beverage, over-the-counter medications and other items, but not prescriptions.
Amazon said in June its new delivery drone should be ready “within months” to deliver packages to customers.

Add that to these other robots, drones, driverless pods, etc.:

Autonomous robot deliveries are coming to 100 university campuses in the U.S. — from digitaltrends.com by Luke Dormehl
Postmates Gets Go-Ahead to Test Delivery Robot in San Francisco — from interestingengineering.com by Donna Fuscaldo
Amazon patents ‘surveillance as a service’ tech for its delivery drones — from theverge.com by Jon Porter
This futuristic driverless pod will soon be delivering pizza in Texas — from digitaltrends.com by Trevor Mogg
Amazon is creating detailed 3D models of suburbia to train its new delivery robots — from theverge.com by James Vincent

From DSC:
Is a wild, wild west developing? It appears so. What does the average citizen do in these cases if they don’t want such drones constantly flying over their heads, neighborhoods, schools, etc.?

I wonder what the average age is of people working on these projects…?

Just because we can…

To Tweet, or Not to Tweet. That Is the Question (for Law Professors) — Karen Sloan

On 09/23/2019, in adjunct faculty, change, faculty, innovation, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, social learning / networks, social media, society, universities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

To Tweet, or Not to Tweet. That Is the Question (for Law Professors) — from law.com by Karen Sloan
The number of law professors using Twitter has increased more than 500% since 2012, according to a new census.

Excerpt:

Law professors are trained to share their thoughts in lengthy, exhaustively footnoted journal articles. So it makes sense that the legal academy as a whole was initially reluctant to embrace Twitter, a medium that forces users to be concise and where the conversation can be bare-knuckled.

But it seems law professors are finally coming around to Twitter. A recent census of law professors on Twitter found that at least 1,310 are on the platform, which represents an increase of more than 500% from 2012, when just several hundred were tweeting.

More law professors have jumped on the Twitter bandwagon as they have watched early adopters use the platform in a variety of ways: From promoting their own work or offering commentary on the news of the day to connecting with others in their field or even engaging with the general public, said Bridget Crawford, a professor at Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University, who compiled the data.

Also see:

Like It Or Not, Law May Open Its Doors To Nonlawyers — from law.com by Aebra Coe

Law360 has learned that the Chicago Bar Foundation and Chicago Bar Association plan to launch a joint task force Oct. 7 to explore how state attorney regulations could be modified to encourage more innovation in the legal sector and ultimately increase access to justice.

Opening at WMU-Cooley Law School: Director of Human Resources

On 09/23/2019, in career development, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, Michigan, workplace, by Daniel Christian

A momentous change in the legal industry garnering little attention — from forbes.com by Hendrik Pretorius

Excerpt:

The needed evolution in legal service delivery may receive a big push in the near future. Surprisingly, this issue seems to be flying under the radar for many in the legal industry.

The California Bar, through its Task Force on Access Through Innovation of Legal Services, created in 2018, seeks to “identify possible regulatory changes to enhance the delivery of, and access to, legal services through the use of technology, including artificial intelligence and online legal service delivery models.”

A report commissioned by this task force stated that “[m]odifying the ethics rules to facilitate greater collaboration across law and other disciplines will (1) drive down costs; (2) improve access; (3) increase predictability and transparency of legal services; (4) aid the growth of new businesses; and (5) elevate the reputation of the legal profession.”

Herein lies one of the fundamental challenges within the legal industry: viewing the law as the delivery of a legal product, and understanding that this delivery needs to revolve around the user, not the lawyer. There is a real and growing divide between the current model of legal service delivery put forth by a traditional law firm model and what the public wants. Consumers have raised the bar based on what they are experiencing in interacting with other businesses in other industries.
…
I love what many of these legal tech companies are doing: They are applying standards from outside the entrenched legal industry and changing entire delivery models. This should be a real wake-up call. But how can law firms truly compete and play a role?

Someone is always listening — from Future Today Institute

Excerpt:

Very Near-Futures Scenarios (2020 – 2022):

Optimistic: Big tech and consumer device industries agree to a single set of standards to inform people when they are being listened to. Devices now emit an audible ping and/ or a visible light anytime they are actively recording sound. While they need to store data in order to improve natural language understanding and other important AI systems, consumers now have access to a portal and can see, listen to, and erase their data at any time. In addition, consumers can choose to opt-out of storing their data to help improve AI systems.
Pragmatic: Big tech and consumer device industries preserve the status quo, which leads to more cases of machine eavesdropping and erodes public trust. Federal agencies open investigations into eavesdropping practices, which leads to a drop in share prices and a concern that more advanced biometric technologies could face debilitating regulation.
Catastrophic: Big tech and consumer device industries collect and store our conversations surreptitiously while developing new ways to monetize that data. They anonymize and sell it to developers wanting to create their own voice apps or to research institutions wanting to do studies using real-world conversation. Some platforms develop lucrative fee structures allowing others access to our voice data: business intelligence firms, market research agencies, polling agencies, political parties and individual law enforcement organizations. Consumers have little to no ability to see and understand how their voice data are being used and by whom. Opting out of collection systems is intentionally opaque. Trust erodes. Civil unrest grows.

Action Meter:

Watchlist:

Google; Apple; Amazon; Microsoft; Salesforce; BioCatch; CrossMatch; ThreatMetrix; Electronic Frontier Foundation; World Privacy Forum; American Civil Liberties Union; IBM; Baidu; Tencent; Alibaba; Facebook; Electronic Frontier Foundation; European Union; government agencies worldwide.

Microsoft President: Democracy Is At Stake. Regulate Big Tech — from npr.org by Aarti Shahani

Excerpts:

Regulate us. That’s the unexpected message from one of the country’s leading tech executives. Microsoft President Brad Smith argues that governments need to put some “guardrails” around engineers and the tech titans they serve.

If public leaders don’t, he says, the Internet giants will cannibalize the very fabric of this country.

“We need to work together; we need to work with governments to protect, frankly, something that is far more important than technology: democracy. It was here before us. It needs to be here and healthy after us,” Smith says.

“Almost no technology has gone so entirely unregulated, for so long, as digital technology,” Smith says.

Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education: Applications, Promise and Perils, and Ethical Questions — from er.educause.edu by Elana Zeide
What are the benefits and challenges of using artificial intelligence to promote student success, improve retention, streamline enrollment, and better manage resources in higher education?

Excerpt:

The promise of AI applications lies partly in their efficiency and partly in their efficacy. AI systems can capture a much wider array of data, at more granularity, than can humans. And these systems can do so in real time. They can also analyze many, many students—whether those students are in a classroom or in a student body or in a pool of applicants. In addition, AI systems offer excellent observations and inferences very quickly and at minimal cost. These efficiencies will lead, we hope, to increased efficacy—to more effective teaching, learning, institutional decisions, and guidance. So this is one promise of AI: that it will show us things we can’t assess or even envision given the limitations of human cognition and the difficulty of dealing with many different variables and a wide array of students.
…
A second peril in the use of artificial intelligence in higher education consists of the various legal considerations, mostly involving different bodies of privacy and data-protection law. Federal student-privacy legislation is focused on ensuring that institutions (1) get consent to disclose personally identifiable information and (2) give students the ability to access their information and challenge what they think is incorrect.7 The first is not much of an issue if institutions are not sharing the information with outside parties or if they are sharing through the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which means an institution does not have to get explicit consent from students. The second requirement—providing students with access to the information that is being used about them—is going to be an increasingly interesting issue.8 I believe that as the decisions being made by artificial intelligence become much more significant and as students become more aware of what is happening, colleges and universities will be pressured to show students this information. People are starting to want to know how algorithmic and AI decisions are impacting their lives.

My short advice about legal considerations? Talk to your lawyers. The circumstances vary considerably from institution to institution.

Technology as Part of the Culture for Legal Professionals [Grush & Christian]

On 09/09/2019, in 21st century, adult learning, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Blockchain, bots, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, communities of practice, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, education, emerging technologies, engineering, future, game-changing environment, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, intelligent systems, law schools, leadership, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, lifelong learning, Natural Language Processing (NLP), online learning, pace of change, platforms, political science, professional development, reinvent, society, staying relevant, technologies for your home, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, tools, trends, United States, by Daniel Christian

Technology as Part of the Culture for Legal Professionals A Q&A with Daniel Christian — from campustechnology.com by Mary Grush and Daniel Christian

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Mary Grush: Why should new technologies be part of a legal education?

Daniel Christian: I think it’s a critical point because our society, at least in the United States — and many other countries as well — is being faced with a dramatic influx of emerging technologies. Whether we are talking about artificial intelligence, blockchain, Bitcoin, chatbots, facial recognition, natural language processing, big data, the Internet of Things, advanced robotics — any of dozens of new technologies — this is the environment that we are increasingly living in, and being impacted by, day to day.

It is so important for our nation that legal professionals — lawyers, judges, attorney generals, state representatives, and legislators among them — be up to speed as much as possible on the technologies that surround us: What are the issues their clients and constituents face? It’s important that legal professionals regularly pulse check the relevant landscapes to be sure that they are aware of the technologies that are coming down the pike. To help facilitate this habit, technology should be part of the culture for those who choose a career in law. (And what better time to help people start to build that habit than within the law schools of our nation?)

There is a real need for the legal realm to catch up with some of these emerging technologies, because right now, there aren’t many options for people to pursue. If the lawyers, and the legislators, and the judges don’t get up to speed, the “wild wests” out there will continue until they do.

An artificial-intelligence first: Voice-mimicking software reportedly used in a major theft — from washingtonpost.com by Drew Harwell

Excerpt:

Thieves used voice-mimicking software to imitate a company executive’s speech and dupe his subordinate into sending hundreds of thousands of dollars to a secret account, the company’s insurer said, in a remarkable case that some researchers are calling one of the world’s first publicly reported artificial-intelligence heists.

The managing director of a British energy company, believing his boss was on the phone, followed orders one Friday afternoon in March to wire more than $240,000 to an account in Hungary, said representatives from the French insurance giant Euler Hermes, which declined to name the company.

From DSC:
Needless to say, this is very scary stuff here! Now what…? Who in our society should get involved to thwart this kind of thing?

Programmers?
Digital audio specialists?
Legislators?
Lawyers?
The FBI?
Police?
Other?

Addendum on 9/12/19:

Watch Out For That Email From Management: The Latest Scams Targeting Lawyers — from by Hannah Roberts
Several firms have been targeted by phishing scams in recent months, but why are cyber criminals so drawn to law firms and how can management safeguard their businesses?

Justice for Some [The Atlantic and the ABA]

On 09/07/2019, in collaboration, Cost of legal services - including access, entrepreneurship, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, society, technology (general), United States, by Daniel Christian

Justice for Some — from theatlantic.com and the American Bar Association (ABA)

Excerpts:

Today in the United States, millions of people like Carol lack access to basic legal resources for a variety of reasons. They forgo legal action because they find the system too overwhelming, for example, or because they perceive it to be too expensive. Many simply do not know when they qualify for legal services in the first place. And it isn’t an issue that affects only the elderly. Middle-class Americans, recent college graduates, first-generation immigrants, and new parents can all experience barriers to accessing the legal resources they need.

This issue affects lawyers, too.
…
DEFENDANTS FACING JAIL TIME in criminal cases have a constitutional right to be provided an attorney, but many people are surprised to learn there is no equivalent guarantee for individuals in civil cases. Typically, defendants in such cases—including divorces, domestic violence orders, home foreclosures, evictions, wills, and immigration applications—are responsible for attaining their own legal representation. And therein lies the gap.
…
By one estimate from the Legal Services Corporation¹, 86 percent of low-income people with civil legal problems received inadequate or no legal help in the past year. Between 2015 and 2018, roughly 80 percent to 90 percent of domestic relations cases in Philadelphia involved at least one self-represented party. In 2016, 75 percent of low-income rural households experienced a civil legal problem, but only 22 percent sought professional legal help. And in 2017, 90 percent of evicted tenants in New York City never made an appearance in court.

“Search results have a huge influence on what people trust,” Hagan says. “If Google tells someone that an answer to their legal question is the number-one hit, people assume that it’s correct, unaware that it may be based on laws in another state. We have seen people click on Australian legal advice even if they’re in California.”

“We know the most successful technological solutions to the access-to-justice gap involve collaboration with lawyers, with technologists, with entrepreneurs and, hopefully to an increasing extent, with consumers,” Rodriguez says. “The object of what we’re doing is to improve the ability of lawyers to provide representation, not to supplant their businesses.”

The Age of AI: How Will In-house Law Departments Run in 10 Years? [Colombo]

On 09/07/2019, in 21st century, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, Cost of legal services - including access, emerging technologies, ideas, innovation, internet, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, society, by Daniel Christian

The Age of AI: How Will In-house Law Departments Run in 10 Years? — from accdocket.com by Elizabeth Colombo

Excerpt:

2029 may feel far away right now, but all of this makes me wonder what in-house law might look like in 10 years. What will in-house law be like in an age of artificial intelligence (AI)? This article will look at how in-house law may be different in 10 years, focusing largely on anticipated changes to contract review and negotiation, and the workplace.

Also see:
A Primer on Using Artificial Intelligence in the Legal Profession — from jolt.law.harvard.edu by Lauri Donahue (2018)

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

How Are Lawyers Using AI?
Lawyers are already using AI to do things like reviewing documents during litigation and due diligence, analyzing contracts to determine whether they meet pre-determined criteria, performing legal research, and predicting case outcomes.

…
Document Review

Analyzing Contracts

Legal Research

Predicting Results
Lawyers are often called upon to predict the future: If I bring this case, how likely is it that I’ll win — and how much will it cost me? Should I settle this case (or take a plea), or take my chances at trial? More experienced lawyers are often better at making accurate predictions, because they have more years of data to work with.

However, no lawyer has complete knowledge of all the relevant data.

Because AI can access more of the relevant data, it can be better than lawyers at predicting the outcomes of legal disputes and proceedings, and thus helping clients make decisions. For example, a London law firm used data on the outcomes of 600 cases over 12 months to create a model for the viability of personal injury cases. Indeed, trained on 200 years of Supreme Court records, an AI is already better than many human experts at predicting SCOTUS decisions.

Digital workplaces are the future for the legal industry [Lo]

On 09/06/2019, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, change, changing business models, collaboration, corporate / business world, future, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, new business models, organizational change, pace of change, platforms, reinvent, society, strategy, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Digital workplaces are the future for the legal industry — from abovethelaw.com by James Lo
The speed of business is accelerating, and digital workplaces are answering the demand for a better way to work, by providing a single platform to manage content, people, and applications.

Excerpt:

The consumerisation of enterprise technology has led to an increasing expectation from lawyers, clients, and business users alike that the legal technology they are using in the workplace for collaboration, knowledge management, transaction management, and more should be as useful, intuitive, and user-friendly as what they are already using at home on a day-to-day basis.

Digital workplaces are answering the demand for a better way to work, by providing a single platform to manage content, people, and applications. As law firms review their technology strategy for the next three to five years, there is an opportunity to create digital workplaces that will match how lawyers will want to work in the future. Within a digital workplace, a lawyer will have access to relevant data and content, collaborate with both clients and colleagues, share knowledge, and solve problems, all in real-time, from anywhere.

At the same time, clients are expecting firms to be using data, artificial intelligence and other technologies to predict outcomes, reduce costs, improve transparency and ultimately add value.

Learning Ecosystems

Will we be able to take a quiet walk in the future? Not if this becomes a full-fledged trend.

Another automated delivery service / pilot…hmm…

Opening at WMU-Cooley Law School: Director of Human Resources

Microsoft President: Democracy Is At Stake. Regulate Big Tech [Shahani]

Justice for Some [The Atlantic and the ABA]

Digital workplaces are the future for the legal industry [Lo]

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