Reading Time: 4 minutes
I was still traveling so I missed the AALL announcement about this artificial intelligence (AI) keyword glossary (members only). It was a project I had worked on, so of course, I was glad to see it get shared publicly. But it had also been a great collaboration, which is not something
The Distraction of Magical Thinking
Reading Time: 7 minutes
I am sure I am not alone in my experience with magical thinking in law libraries. I’m sure it’s not unique to law libraries either. We operate in an environment where the people who oversee our libraries often know how to use legal information, perform legal research. There is a danger
Embrace Our Robot Underlings
Reading Time: 9 minutes
I was able to participate recently in a professional event involving lots of smart librarians discussing AI and law libraries. At the end, one outcome I committed to was to list what my law library was doing and how AI might impact those tasks. Here’s how that progressed.
Sometimes saying something
The Productivity Spiral
Reading Time: 4 minutes
At the turn of the century, I worked at the American Bar Association. We had successfully evaded the Y2K turmoil, dot-com was ascendant, and legal technology was having a bit of a boom. There seemed to be lots of emerging companies (until the dot com bubble burst) and the market was
What If It Seems Pointless?
Reading Time: 12 minutes
I updated our governance board last month on our last awareness campaign. We have been placing marketing ads on public transit across the county. The idea was that we needed to bolster awareness post-lockdown. I struggle with the purpose of marketing, because I think it tends to be very woolly in
Role of Web Search in Legal Research
Reading Time: 9 minutes
In the before times, we were wary of guiding people to legal research with web search engines. Over time, Google and other generic, commercial web search engines have become commonly used tools in legal research. All signs indicate that we need to rethink, perhaps not their place, but their usage in
Are Algorithms Required for Ethical Legal Research?
As we are increasingly aware, the ethical Duty of Technology Competence requires lawyers to keep abreast of “changes in the law and its practice, including the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology.” To date, 35 states have adopted the duty.
In a previous post, I highlighted the risks of blindly relying
Error of the Day & Maintaining Integrity of Algorithmic Results
If you’re into algorithms, you should absolutely subscribe to the MIT Technology Review newsletter called The Algorithm.
Earlier this week, the folks at The Algorithm asked “what is AI, exactly?” The answer is reproduced below.
The question may seem basic, but the answer is kind of complicated.
In the broadest sense, AI refers to
Algorithms, Fake News, & The Google Generation
At the Ohio Regional Association of Law Libraries (ORALL) Annual Meeting, as I presented on the duty of technology competence in the algorithmic society, an astute law librarian asked (paraphrasing), “how does fake news play into this?” That question gave rise to a flurry of brain activity, as I considered how Google, for example,
AI in Teaching; AI in Law
The Chronicle of Higher Education recently published an article discussing how artificial intelligence is changing teaching (sub. req’d). The discussion centered around many of the same themes that we see when discussing artificial intelligence in law.
The CHE article asks the common questions: When you’ve got artificial intelligence handling work that is normally done by