Law Times reports … Artificial intelligence can be particularly helpful for alternative dispute resolution, say lawyers, as long as people are mindful of the technology’s limitations.
Marvin Huberman, president of the Alternative Dispute Resolution Institute of Ontario, says artificial intelligence could do more than just analyze data for patterns.
“Artificial intelligence, a relational agent, can contribute in a very significant way to alternative dispute resolution and problem solving either by being intelligent or behaving intelligently,” he says.
Huberman says he does not think artificial intelligence will completely replace human mediators or arbitrators. But he thinks artificial intelligence could be used at the beginning of a mediation process to answer questions about how the mediation process will unfold. Huberman says a robotic machine could repeat information without growing impatient, like human mediators might. People may also be more comfortable sharing details about sensitive events to a robot than to a person, he says.
“It may be better for some people to relay that information to a non-judgemental avatar or a robot or an artificial intelligence device,” says Huberman.
William Horton, an independent commercial arbitrator and lawyer in Toronto, says arbitrations are shorter than litigations, and this makes artificial intelligence particularly helpful when cases involve lots of documents. Arbitrators have less time to read the documents. Horton moderated a panel discussion on uses of technology in arbitration at the Toronto Commercial Arbitration Society’s annual general meeting on May 28.
“In arbitration, we’re typically dealing with very short deadlines,” Horton says.
“The document production process in litigation can go on for two years without anyone batting an eye or thinking there’s anything unusual about that. The whole discovery process, including examinations for discovery might go on for several years in some commercial cases.”
