The Field Of Study I Have Chosen

The field of study I have chosen is entrepreneurship, although my ultimate plan is to attend law school with plans to practice business law. I would like to work with corporate companies as a part of their general counsel and do things like draw up contracts, protect the company’s physical and intellectual property, and other legal matters. I first became interested in business law when taking the required class last summer for Lindner College of Business, but truly was fascinated by the cases we looked at and began researching business law as a career.

The world we have grown up in has witnessed the most rapid expand in technology, and it truly affects everyday life even for people do not work in the technology field. The most interesting angle of technology to me is that of artificial intelligence and the effect it has already had on our world. Artificial intelligence dates back to 1956 when the term was coined at the Dartmouth Conference when scientists wanted to imitate human intelligence with computers (Sreedevi, et al 418). Although at the time technology was just a glimmer of what it is today, this was a foundational moment in technology history – a time where people believed a machine would operate as a human one day. From there, artificial intelligence has become a familiar term used every day. According to Harvard Business Review, "The most important general-purpose technology of our era is artificial intelligence, particularly machine learning (ML) – that is the machine’s ability to keep improving its performance without humans having to explain exactly how to accomplish all the tasks it’s given" (Brynjolfsson and Mcafee 2). It is important to address the importance of artificial intelligence both in current times and in the future as it paves its way into our lives more and more. Even companies are adding it to their marketing mix, because it is easier to program a machine that can automatically detect what a person’s likes and dislikes are based on their person cell phone rather than creating commercial the appeals to only a percentage of their consumers (Harding 3-4).

Information technology is the basis of artificial intelligence, although eerily accurate, these machines are nothing without the data they are backed by. In order for a machine to get a full grasp of what a person using technology wants to see, they must first collect the data. This information is retrieved, stored, and used to draw conclusions based on that data. From there, artificial intelligence systems can use that information to do whatever job they are programmed to do. For some companies, that would be showing similar types of clothes or products they have looked at on the past on their social media. For other companies, artificial intelligence takes place in deciding the route a person takes to work based on other people’s data that shows they are stuck in traffic or got into an accident. There are also companies that have used artificial intelligence to review contracts for legal purposes, and even in the medical field these systems are used to diagnose illnesses such as cancer (Brynjolfsson and Mcafee 2). The list could go on and on, but these are just a few examples of how information technology through artificial intelligence is affecting the world all around us, not just within our immediate technology use.

Artificial intelligence has, and will continue to, impact the field of law. It is interesting because in the past, information technology has not been as welcomed into the field due to the typical traditional practice of law. However, the legal world has recently incorporated the use of artificial intelligence – in short – to reduce time spent on the boring aspects of their job. The benefits of using artificial intelligence within the legal world are significant. According to legal professional Avaneesh Marwaha, artificial intelligence has seven benefits for the legal world: saves time, provides more accurate risk assessment, produces higher quality work, improves organizational and logical structure, enhances creative analysis and identification of persuasive precedents, reduced attorney stress and frustration, and improves client relations (2-3). These are just a few of the benefits that come along with the legal world utilizing artificial intelligence.

By allowing more of the routine legal work to be done by a computer that learns while doing, it makes it possible for more pressing matters to be taken care of more quickly. As of now, this technology is helping with reviewing documents, automated research, document analysis, and proofreading (Marwaha 2). With lawyers, this is critical because often times legal issues come with time sensitive matters. Artificial intelligence is creating more and more opportunities for lawyers and could certainly change the way the entire field operates. In addition, it is commonly known that lawyers often have the longest working hours and highest depression/anxiety rate for a profession. With artificial intelligence working alongside these lawyers, not only will it improve their work pace, but it will also improve their overall nature as a person.

This is a very intriguing thing to think about because it also raises the question of how the legal work force will change as a result of faster pace, will this make the entire industry speed up and cause the same amounts of stress and work overload? It is interesting to think about the evolution of technology and how it may, in turn, demand more work. Possible disadvantages could be the replacement of human jobs with artificial intelligence for reviewing documents or drawing up contracts. Since these systems are constantly gathering the data and learning from that data, it is possible that they become better than an average lawyer would be in that area. In Lombardo’s paper on information technology and artificial intelligence, he quotes Ray Kurzweil, "Can an intelligence create another intelligence more intelligent than itself?" (Lombardo 4). Although I personally am referring to law, this could certainly be applied to all areas using artificial intelligence. There may come a time one day that artificial intelligence becomes so intelligent itself that it may know more than the highest level of human management.

Lastly, artificial intelligence will also affect law simply because of its presence. While it may be useful for lawyers in the office, it could also be a huge legal issue for those same people. Anytime new technology arises, it is likely that there will be new laws put in place that put restraints on how the technology can be used. As a future lawyer, I may need to handle cases dealing with just use of artificial intelligence, clearing up the line between gathering personal data for learning and protecting one’s privacy. If artificial intelligence advances even more, what kind of rights does the creator have to control this information technology? Is it possible that a machine could learn how to avoid being shut down at the hands of a human, and could this intelligence eventually decide it also has rights as humans do? There are endless possibilities to the cases that will come up in regard to artificial intelligence, and they will likely be some of the most complex cases that lawyers will have to address.

I find this area very fascinating because there are so many routes in which artificial intelligence can take in the future, not only in the legal field but overall. It is simply baffling to think that the emergence of the idea of artificial intelligence was only 62 years ago, yet look at how far this information technology has evolved. This technology is already so prominent in our lives, and we are effecting technology just as technology is effecting us. As stated by Lombardo, "This is the ultimate reciprocity of humans and computers; we are minds with physical bodies creating physical bodies with minds, and in the future, these two realities will merge into one" (85). It is peculiar to think this way, that one day human and artificial intelligence will be equal and possibly even fused together, but it could likely happen in this lifetime. Artificial intelligence is an area within information technology that has affected the entire world, and maybe one day will be able to explain itself exactly how it did.

 

Works Cited

Brynjolfsson, Erik, and Andrew Mcafee. "The Business of Artificial Intelligence." Harvard

Business Review, Harvard Business School Publishing, 1 Feb. 2018, hbr.org/cover-story/2017/07/the-business-of-artificial-intelligence.

Harding, Cortney. "How AI Is Transforming the Shopping Experience Based on the Images

Consumers Look at Online." Adweek, Adweek, 11 Sept. 2017, www.adweek.com/digital/how-ai-is-transforming-the-shopping-experience-based-on-the-images-consumers-look-at-online/.

Lombardo, Tom. Wisdom, Consciousness, and the Future: Collected Essays. "Information

Technology and Artificial Intelligence." Thomas Lombardo, 2011, www.centerforfutureconsciousness.com/pdf_files/readings/readinginfotech.pdf.

Marwaha, Avaneesh. "Seven Benefits of Artificial Intelligence for Law Firms." Law Technology

Today, American Bar Association, 11 July 2017, www.lawtechnologytoday.org/2017/07/seven-benefits-artificial-intelligence-law-firms/.

Sreedevi, E., K. Saravanan, and V. Subhamathi. "A Review of Artificial Intelligence

Systems." International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science, vol. 8, no. 9, 2017, ProQuest, https://search-proquestcom.proxy.libraries.uc.edu/docview/ 1980479933?accountid=2909.