How Will Artificial Intelligence Impact the Future of Paralegals?

After many false beginnings, artificial intelligence (AI) has made astonishing progress in the past few years. AI, sometimes referred to as cognitive computing, refers to computers learning how to complete tasks traditionally done by humans. Thanks to a versatile technique called "deep learning," large neural computer networks modeled on the architecture of the human brain, can be trained to do all kinds of tasks if given enough data. This rapid progress has led to concerns about job losses in the legal sector. Some argue that advances in AI will result in the creation of an "iParalegal" that sifts through a firm's knowledge management system, picking out and synthesizing relevant case law and performing tasks correlating to previous matters using transaction data that proved successful. AI would utilize game theory algorithms to sort out negotiations, propose litigation tactics, and complete due diligence and discovery processes in seconds.