IBM's technology has won Jeopardy, managed companies and is now practicing law.

ROSS, 'the world's first artificially intelligent attorney' powered by Watson, recently landed a position at New York law firm Baker & Hostetler handling the firm's bankruptcy practice.

The machine is designed to understand language, provide answers to questions, formulate hypotheses and monitor developments in the legal system.

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IBM's technology has won Jeopardy, managed companies and is now practicing law. ROSS, 'the world's first artificially intelligent attorney' powered by Watson, has just landed a position at New York law firm Baker & Hostetler handling the firm's bankruptcy practice

WHAT CAN ROSS DO? Lawyers ask ROSS research questions in natural language, just like they were talking to a colleague, and the AI 'reads' through the law, gathers evidence, draws inferences and returns with a 'highly relevant', evidence-based answer. The program will continue to improve the more it is used. It also keep track of developments in the legal system and especially if anything pertains to a lawyer's specific case. Advertisement

'At BakerHostetler, we believe that emerging technologies like cognitive computing and other forms of machine learning can help enhance the services we deliver to our clients,' said Bob Craig, Chief Information Officer.

'We are proud to team up with innovators like ROSS and we will continue to explore these cutting-edge technologies as they develop.'

The ROSS platform is built on IBM's Watson computer, which supports it with the same cognitive computing and natural language processing capabilities that won Jeopardy in 2011.

'You ask your questions in plain English, as you would a colleague, and ROSS then reads through the entire body of law and returns a cited answer and topical readings from legislation, case law and secondary sources to get you up-to-speed quickly,' says the ROSS Intelligence website.

'In addition, ROSS monitors the law around the clock to notify you of new court decisions that can affect your case.'

Lawyers ask ROSS research questions in natural language, just like they were talking to a human colleague, and the AI 'reads' through the law, gathers evidence, draws inferences and returns with a 'highly relevant', evidence-based answer.

And the program will continue to improve the more it is used.

It will also keep track of developments in the legal system, specifically information that pertains to a lawyer's specific case.

The ROSS platform is built on IBM's Watson cognitive computer, which supports it with the same cognitive computing and natural language processing capabilities that won Jeopardy in 2011. Lawyers ask ROSS research questions in natural language and the AI returns with a 'highly relevant', evidence-based answer

AI TEACHES GRAD STUDENTS FOR 5 MONTHS Jill Watson, an IBM-designed bot, has been helping graduate students at Georgia Institute of Technology solve problems with their design projects since January. Responding to questions over email and posted on forums, Jill had a casual, colloquial tone, and was able to offer nuanced and accurate responses within minutes. Her replies included 'yep!' and 'we'd love to'. The students had no idea until they were told - and many were shocked. The bot was named Jill Watson after the IBM Watson analytics system that all her responses come from - essentially her brain. She was trained by Georgia Tech researchers before being thrown into the mix with nine other TAs. Some students were suspicious at how swiftly she responded. And once she used the word 'design' instead of 'project'. But none actually suspected she was a bot. In fact, some looked her up online and found LinkedIn and Facebook accounts that could correspond with their prompt TA. And they said many of the TAs are sharp, impersonal, and quick to respond anyway. Advertisement

ROSS stems from research conducted in 2014 at the University of Toronto. A year later, the AI moved to Palo Alto, California and in just ten months of ROSS learning bankruptcy law, it received a job offer at Baker & Hostetler (stock image used)

'BakerHostetler's commitment to the future of the legal practice and ensuring they continue to deliver the highest level of value to their clients completely aligns with our vision at ROSS Intelligence,' said Andrew Arruda, CEO and co-founder of Ross Intelligence.

'BakerHostetler has been using ROSS since the first days of its deployment and we are proud to partner with a true leader in the industry as we continue to develop additional AI legal assistants.'

ROSS stems from research conducted in 2014 at the University of Toronto.

A year later, the AI moved to Palo Alto, California and in just ten months of ROSS learning bankruptcy law, it received a job offer at Baker & Hostetler.

IBM will continue to teach ROSS different areas of law with the hopes that every law firm in the world will have an AI on their legal team.



