Did you hear the one about the affordable yet efficient human lawyer and its robot counterpart? One is complete myth and will never happen while the other might be just around the corner thanks to artificial intelligence (AI). Everybody loves a silly lawyer joke but the joke may be on us because the lawyer or barrister is one of the professions least likely to be replaced by automation and it may also be one that will benefit most from AI and machine learning. There is an interesting website called willrobotstakemyjob.com where you can enter various jobs and see the probability that automation will, at some point in the future, render certain professions obsolete or not. This is calculated using a methodology developed by Oxford University researchers looking at the future of employment.

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An artificial intelligence company that uses computers, not lawyers, to sift through thousands of legal documents in search of key information is moving part of its operations to Toronto. ROSS Intelligence co-founder Andrew Arruda calls opening a research and development centre here a "no brainer." Canada'lost the lead' on artificial intelligence. Here's how Toronto will get it back Arruda, one of the University of Toronto graduates who founded the company, was back on campus Monday to announce the news, calling the city "the hub of artificial intelligence development." While the company's headquarters remain in San Francisco, "Toronto is where we always knew we had to be," Arruda told a crowd who gathered on campus for a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

One of the country's biggest law firms has become the first to publicly announce that it has "hired" a robot lawyer to assist with bankruptcy cases. The robot, called ROSS, has been marketed as "the world's first artificially intelligent attorney." ROSS has joined the ranks of law firm BakerHostetler, which employs about 50 human lawyers just in its bankruptcy practice. The AI machine, powered by IBM's Watson technology, will serve as a legal researcher for the firm. It will be responsible for sifting through thousands of legal documents to bolster the firm's cases.

There is no such thing as robot lawyers, and even if there were, they are not coming to take jobs away from human lawyers. Instead, lawyers should think about how best to work with and harness the potential of software and artificial intelligence to propel their practices forward while bridging the access-to-justice gap. Those were the main takeaways in a wide-ranging Friday morning panel discussion at ABA Techshow featuring Ross Intelligence CEO Andrew Arruda, IBM Global Chief Information Security Officer Shamla Naidoo and FastCase CEO Ed Walters. The three gave a brief history and overview of artificial intelligence, while dispelling some myths and cautioning those in attendance to temper their expectations as to what AI can and can't do. "This is tech that's been around for 60 to 80 years," Arruda said.

When Jimoh Ovbiagele was ten years old, his parents decided to get a divorce. But as the couple got deeper into the process, the legal fees grew more and more expensive, until they ended up abandoning the whole plan. "It had a negative impact on my family," Ovbiagele says. In high school and beyond, when Ovbiagele was looking into various career options, he discovered that most of a lawyer's time is actually spent researching cases. Ovbiagele ended up studying computer science rather than law, but when he had the opportunity to pursue an artificial intelligence project at the University of Toronto, he had a pretty good idea of what he wanted to work on.

We may need to start rewriting our precious lawyer jokes -- smart, time-saving computers are quickly elevating the profession. Instead of hiring expensive assistants to pore over cases and sort through tickets, law firms are increasingly turning toward artificially-intelligent machines to do the expensive menial jobs instead. They are creating a future in which a costly and inefficient legal system actually becomes an attractive way for the average citizen to protect his or her civil liberties. One of the first places to use ROSS was the law firm BakerHostetler, where the software handles bankruptcy cases. Employees enter commands into the software in everyday language, like when they need to find examples of precedence for specific cases.

Andrew Arruda describes himself as an entrepreneur, strategist and leader, with nearly a decade of experience in the legal industry. He is also a licensed attorney, who "knows the ins and outs of the legal profession and aims to forever change the way legal services are delivered". He plans to do this through ROSS Intelligence, which he co-founded in 2014. ROSS is "the world's first artificially intelligent attorney", built using IBM's Watson. It understands natural language legal questions and provides expert answers instantly, along with other relevant information – cutting down substantially on legal research time and energy. Prior to ROSS Intelligence, Arruda worked at Toronto litigation boutique, Azevedo & Nelson, and with the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development in Portugal.

Uber has killed off taxi service--it is a dying industry. AIRBNB is taking market share from hotels and motels--which is why lobbyists are swarming city hall to create regulations to make it more expensive and less available for property owners to use their private property. Fast food places are introducing robots to produce food, kiosks to take orders and payments. Hospitals are using robots to sanitize rooms and agriculture is developing driverless tractors. Now the legal profession is being hit is computer disruption.

We may need to start rewriting our precious lawyer jokes -- smart, time-saving computers are quickly elevating the profession. Instead of hiring expensive assistants to pore over cases and sort through tickets, law firms are increasingly turning toward artificially-intelligent machines to do the expensive menial jobs instead. They are creating a future in which a costly and inefficient legal system actually becomes an attractive way for the average citizen to protect his or her civil liberties. Andrew Arruda, the CEO and co-founder of ROSS Intelligence, tells Tech Insider that "AI-enabled software is going to become very much the status quo and very normal" in the coming decade. Arruda's company recently deployed the ROSS software at a handful of law firms throughout the US.