It previously piloted similar technology developed by Canadian firm OpenText during its four-year investigation into fraud at Rolls-Royce which involved reviewing 30 million documents. The SFO said that technology was up to 80% cheaper than using outside counsel to review those documents and identify legally privileged material. OpenText, the "AI lawyer", goes "further than just flagging legally privileged material" an SFO spokesperson told Sky News. "It can also scan and organise information from multiple document types - PowerPoint, Outlook calendar invites, Word documents etc - displaying the information relevant to an investigation on a timeline for an investigator to then review." The SFO told Sky News they expect the system to cost "around £12m over the expected lifetime of 7 years - which is offset against the savings the new tech will bring by enhancing our ability to review and investigate in a targeted way, without solely relying on human review."

The future of legal research assistance lawyers is zero. The job will soon vanish for all practical purposes. Futurism reports "Ross, the world's first artificially intelligent attorney, has its first official law firm. Baker & Hostetler announced that they will be employing Ross for its bankruptcy practice, currently comprised of almost 50 lawyers." Please consider Artificially Intelligent Lawyer "Ross" Has Been Hired By Its First Official Law Firm.

It sounds like the punchline from a joke. A law firm has hired the world's first artificially intelligent lawyer. According to Futurism, the lawyer has been named Ross. Ross was built on IBM's cognitive computer, Watson. IBM describes Watson as "a technology platform that uses natural language processing and machine learning to reveal insights from large amounts of unstructured data."

Gel1…..I've been here 6 months, mostly watching and learning. Lots of smart people on the site and I've learned a lot from Phil and many others. I have to thank Phil and the many contruibutors for a 80% profit for 2009. I have learned a lot and am still learning ( even occasionally about political issues - ha!) Peace of mind / I have a portfolio mainly consisting of long term long calls, short term short calls and puts, and long term BCS. Three years, ago when I started my journey on this board I would be freaking out panicking as to what to do, as many of the short calls are ITM, Three years later (today) I look at the screen and serenely process the information. Three years ago, I inevitably made the wrong decisions which cost me a lot of money. Three years on I calmly roll the positions to whatever makes sense. I guess they call that the power of education. Phil, i wanted to thank you again for helping me protect future stock allocations at work - finally, i feel like i am owning my own destiny with stocks vs. letting the market dictate what you get – thanks again. Phil/BCS - Didn't realise they traded here.