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Daily Archives: April 25, 2019

Artificial Intelligence Will Change E-Discovery in the Next Three Years

Law Technology Today: “…According to Andrew Ng, Co-Founder of Coursera and Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, artificial intelligence (AI) is the new electricity. “Just as electricity transformed almost everything 100 years ago,” he explains, “today I actually have a hard time thinking of an industry that I don’t think AI will transform in the next several years.” Ng is not alone. Consumers’ lives, tastes, and habits have been profoundly altered by artificial intelligence, with companies like Amazon, Google, Netflix, Spotify, and Uber (to name a few) disrupting well-established industries. Legal technology including e-discovery (and software as a service in general) will not be spared. No less an authority than Gartner estimates that 80% of emerging technologies will be built on a foundation of artificial intelligence by 2021…AI facilitates e-discovery by playing a number of roles in the process: curator, advisor, and orchestrator. Both curator and advisor roles are familiar to e-discovery professionals. AI can recommend documents for deeper review (much like Netflix recommends a new movie or TV show), or it can advise a project manager on scoping custodian lists or collection criteria (as it can suggest a response to a text message or email). But newer AIs can also function as an orchestrator of the entire e-discovery process, learning from past actions and results, and coordinating tasks across multiple channels…”

“Sanctuary” Jurisdictions: Federal, State, and Local Policies and Related Litigation

EveryCRSReport – “Sanctuary” Jurisdictions: Federal, State, and Local Policies and Related Litigation, April 16, 2019. “There is no official or agreed-upon definition of what constitutes a “sanctuary” jurisdiction, and there has been debate as to whether the term applies to particular states and localities. Moreover, state and local jurisdictions have varied reasons for opting not… Continue Reading

Lawyers, law students’ signatures needed for SCOTUS amicus brief in favor of publishing the law

BoingBoing: “Attentive reader will note that rogue archivist Carl Malamud (previously) published the laws of Georgia — including the paywalled annotations to the state laws — in 2015, prompting the state to sue him and literally call him a terrorist; Malamud countersued in 2015 and won a huge victory in 2018, when the US Court… Continue Reading

Study identifies 80% of journalists falling for false online info

Poynter – “In a new study conducted by the Institute for the Future, a California-based nonprofit think tank, researchers found more than 80% of journalists admitted to falling for false information online. The data was based on a survey of 1,018 journalists at regional and national publications in the United States. Perhaps more concerning: Only… Continue Reading

Adult Children Are Costing Many Parents Their Retirement Saving

Bankrate: “Parents are responsible for taking care of their children, and that means emotionally, physically — and financially. But how old is too old to be receiving money from mom and dad? A new Bankrate survey on financial independence looked into the average age Americans think individuals should start paying for their own bills, including… Continue Reading

41% of voice assistant users have concerns about trust and privacy

TechCrunch: “Forty-one percent of voice assistant users are concerned about trust, privacy and passive listening, according to a new report from Microsoft focused on consumer adoption of voice and digital assistants. And perhaps people should be concerned — all the major voice assistants, including those from Google, Amazon, Apple and Samsung, as well as Microsoft,… Continue Reading

Is Shakespeare’s DNA Hiding in the Folger Library’s Vault?

Washingtonian – “Project Dustbunny” Aims to Find Out – That extremely unlikely outcome is just one aspect of an intriguing scientific effort – “The Folger Shakespeare Library’s underground storage facility stretches a full block beneath the building, protected by a nine-inch-thick steel bank-vault door. It houses about 260,000 historically significant books, along with manuscripts, documents,… Continue Reading

Draft UN Report – One million species risk extinction due to humans

Agence France Presse: “Up to one million species face extinction due to human influence, according to a draft UN report obtained by AFP that painstakingly catalogues how humanity has undermined the natural resources upon which its very survival depends. The accelerating loss of clean air, drinkable water, CO2-absorbing forests, pollinating insects, protein-rich fish and storm-blocking… Continue Reading