Artificial intelligence (AI) is still in its early stages, and applications like technology-assisted review (TAR) and intelligent search engines warrant little cause for alarm. But while streamlining automations rendered possible by AI, are currently alleviating much weight from the shoulders of legal professionals, some believe that, in the not-so-distant future, the technology couldremove the profession itself.
This potential reality was the focus of “The Future of Professions: How Technology is Changing the Way Professionals Work and Provide Services,” the keynote of Vanderbilt Law’s event “Watson, Esq.: Will your Next Lawyer be a Machine?” The speaker was Richard Susskind, a scholar and lecturer focused on how the technology age is changing the work of lawyers. Susskind is the author of “Tomorrow’s Lawyers: An Introduction to Your Future;” “The End of Lawyers?: Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services’” and a book of the same title of the session in discussion.
