Cognitive Assistants for Document-Related Tasks in Law and Government

The legal relationship between government and citizens is mediated by documents. This paper identifies four classes of cognitive assistants that could improve the experience of citizens and government officials in using and understanding government documents: self-filling forms; error-detecting forms; proactive information search; and deductive document synthesis. Each of these classes of cognitive assistants has the potential to significantly improve access to justice and delivery of information, services, and other benefits to citizens by improving the ability of citizens to understand and correctly fill out forms and to comprehend informational documents.