The field of artificial intelligence (AI) is gaining popularity by the day. Hundreds and thousands of tasks and various problems are being solved by machine learning modeling algorithms every minute. The best part is that such an approach to an everyday routine tends to improve the situation and decrease the number of mistakes which could occur due to manual processing.
Modern AI-based programs have learned to perform multiple functions. They can:
- Manage data entry,
- Detect spam emails,
- Recommend additional products for online shop websites based on a customer’s purchasing behavior,
- Identify the most demanding and high-risk clients in the medical field and make accurate diagnoses,
- Analyze big data and be of much help in financial predictions (e.g. trading, managing financial portfolio, detecting possible fraud in bank sector, etc.) and
- Recognize minute details in images and photos.
With this in mind, there’s a list of professions that are at risk of being completely entrusted to AI; for example, assistants in shops, waiters, drivers, translators among others.
A Recent contest held by the CaseCrunch start-up team has put lawyers under the same threat.
Human occupations are approaching oblivion
According to The Next Web, the challenge saw about 100 London lawyers registered to fight against Case Cruncher AI software. Both teams, the program and the “army of lawyers” were given a list basic facts of various Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) mis-selling cases. The only task they had to do was a simple prediction if the claim would be allowed by the Financial Ombudsman.
After the jury processed about 775 predictions both parties made, the results were fascinating! The computer won with flying colors: 86.6 percent CaseCruncher Alpha accuracy rate against 62.3 percent the team of esteemed lawyers managed to score.
Clearly, there are many factors that people can think of which could possibly contribute to such an outcome. For example, there can be involved other than legal aspects, the machine can be used to solve some certain, uncomplicated cases, AI software might have won due to more computing capabilities and only the expert PPI lawyers should’ve been selected instead of the professionals in the general financial field, etc.
Sure, under different conditions, the AI could have gained lower scores while the team of lawyers could have done better. However, the results speak for themselves! The machine can definitely outperform humans in many aspects; it can do and solves things better and far more speedily. While humans still dominate the majority of spheres, AI-based programs are just at their early rise and everything can (and most probably will) change drastically in the near future.
