Decades ago, the words “artificial intelligence,” or “AI,” had people conjuring images of HAL 9000’s evil red glow in “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Today, people regularly interact with AI, even when they may not immediately consider it, in the form of friendly-sounding voice assistants Siri and Alexa, and AI algorithms and machine learning technologies have worked their way into fields that may not obviously seem like natural fits for the tools—this includes the law.

If not widespread, AI is already being applied in segments of the legal industry. Some uses are more obvious, such as in contract drafting or amplifying online searching that could one day make the physical law library obsolete. Other tools are surprising and more robust in how they are beginning to replace human thought processes, as we see with AI-assisted mediation programs.