Preliminary Notes on Open Data Licensing

Open data is fuel for the future economy. Opening and sharing data owned by public bodies, communities and companies has an incredible economic value. This will potentially lead our society to a new data-driven thinking paradigm. They also enable a smarter urban space where companies can provide better and innovative services. In particular, accessing to government data held by public bodies generates accountability, transparency and fosters economic growth. Two main aspects define data as open: data formats and licenses. This paper aims at listing some preliminary notes on the copyright framework in which open data are released and presenting the idea of considering licenses as metadata. Many tools, according to the semantic web paradigm, aim at enforcing this aspect, managing data exchange in a more compliance way and reducing costs for reuse of data. Finally, a research path for a new approach to digital ownership will be presented

Using artificial intelligence to increase access to justice

L'intelligence artificielle est l'un des domaines les plus florissants et les plus passionnants de la recherche et de l'industrie. Au cours des dernières années, les approches utilisant l'apprentissage profond ont permis de nombreuses avancées dans divers domaines, notamment la vision par ordinateur, la traduction automatique, la reconnaissance et la génération d'images, ainsi que la compréhension et la génération de textes (tels que GPT-4). Dans cette thèse, je cherche à savoir si et comment l'intelligence artificielle peut être utilisée pour améliorer l'accès à la justice et à l'information juridique pour les justiciables. Le citoyen moyen est souvent dépassé et impuissant lorsqu'il est confronté à des problèmes juridiques. Il peut avoir du mal à comprendre comment la loi s'applique à sa situation et à utiliser le système juridique pour résoudre son problème, même s'il est conscient de ses droits. En conséquence, leurs problèmes restent irrésolus ou ils ne profitent pas des possibilités qui leur sont offertes. C'est pourquoi j'ai développé et mis en œuvre la méthodologie "JusticeBot", qui utilise l'IA pour aider les justiciables à résoudre leurs problèmes juridiques. Les outils qui en résultent utilisent une approche hybride de raisonnement basée sur des règles et des cas pour poser à l'utilisateur des questions pertinentes, analyser sa situation juridique et lui fournir des informations juridiques appropriées ainsi que des cas antérieurs similaires liés à son problème juridique particulier. L'utilisateur peut utiliser ces informations pour négocier une solution mutuellement acceptable ou pour naviguer dans le processus juridique ardu. JusticeBot est donc un outil d'intelligence augmentée, qui améliore le niveau de connaissance de l'utilisateur pour l'aider à résoudre ses problèmes juridiques. Je décris la méthodologie globale et la manière dont je l'ai mise en œuvre dans des outils logiciels, par exemple le "JusticeCreator", une interface permettant de créer et de mettre à jour les outils JusticeBot. Je présente également un outil JusticeBot déployé dans le domaine des litiges entre propriétaires et locataires, qui est accessible au public à l'adresse https://justicebot.ca. Cet outil a été utilisé plus de 17 000 fois et 86 % des utilisateurs ayant répondu à une enquête ont déclaré qu'ils recommanderaient le système à d'autres personnes. Je pense que JusticeBot peut contribuer à aider les individus à résoudre leurs problèmes juridiques, ainsi qu'à renforcer la confiance et l'identification aux institutions juridiques au niveau sociétal en améliorant l'accès à la justice et l'accès à l'information juridique pour le citoyen moyen.Artificial intelligence is one of the most thriving and exciting areas in research and industry. Recently, approaches using deep learning have led to a number of breakthroughs in a range of areas, including computer vision, machine translation, image recognition and generation, and text understanding and generation (such as GPT-4). In this thesis, I investigate if and how artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to improve access to justice and access to legal information for laypeople, i.e. people without legal training. The average citizen is often overwhelmed and helpless when dealing with legal problems. They may struggle to understand how the law applies to their situation, and further have trouble using the judicial system to resolve their issue, even if they are aware of their rights. This results in their problems going unresolved or prevents them from benefiting from opportunities available to them. For this reason, I developed and implemented the “JusticeBot” methodology, which uses AI to support laypeople with their legal issues. The resulting tools use a hybrid rule-based and case-based reasoning approach to ask a user relevant questions, analyze their legal situation, and provide them with suitable legal information and similar previous cases related to their particular legal problem. They can use this information to negotiate a mutually agreeable solution, or to navigate the arduous legal process. Thus, JusticeBot is an augmented intelligence tool, enhancing the user’s knowledge level to help them solve their legal problems. I describe the overall methodology and how I implemented it into software tools, e.g. the “JusticeCreator”, an interface to create and update JusticeBot tools. I also elaborate on a deployed JusticeBot tool in the area of landlord-tenant disputes, which is accessible to the public at https://justicebot.ca. This tool has been used over 17k times, and 86% of users responding to a survey report that they would recommend the system to others. I believe that JusticeBot can contribute to helping individuals resolve their legal problems, as well as increasing trust in and identification with legal institutions on a societal level, by improving access to justice and access to legal information for the average citizen

The impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies on legal practitioners in law firms and legal publishers.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions currently have the capabilities to perform tasks quicker, more accurately and consistently than legal professionals. This could result in inducing the opinion in employers at private law firms and legal publishers that AI software may have a quicker return on investment and a lower total cost of ownership. The purpose of this study is to discover whether the availability of yield-producing, affordable AI technologies in the legal industry could lead to legal practitioners and their roles becoming redundant. An explanatory quantitative study was established using a cross-sectional descriptive survey design to achieve the objectives of the research. A self-administered structured questionnaire was developed and delivered via hardcopy and e-mail to 102 legal professionals by means of snowball sampling. These respondents were drawn from 19 different private law firms, legal publishers and legal departments at private corporations. Statistical analysis performed on the data collected was analysed and interpreted using descriptive and inferential statistics. The results revealed that there was a general awareness of advancement in certain legal AI solutions and there was a general agreement that legal professionals would advocate that their companies invest in AI Solutions if it produced additional accurate work yield while being cost-effective. The final revelation was that legal professionals agreed that AI solutions were not yet mature enough to replace human legal professionals. Regardless of this sentiment, they felt that they and their companies, would hire fewer legal professionals presented with the opportunity of value-adding legal AI solutions. Recommendations include legal professionals investigating the advancement and availability of AI solutions for the purposes of utilising it to strategically augment and bolster their job functions. Further recommendations include investigations into understanding their company’s current capability and strength in comparison to their competitors and to understand how AI would augment their company performance to provide additional value in terms of insight and improve turn-around times. The final recommendation was for South African tertiary institutions of higher learning to start incorporating the topics of AI and Law into its Law Degree curriculum in an effort to make students aware of the advancement of AI in the area of Law and how it will affect their lives. The importance of this study is in the opinion of the professionals surveyed who believe that there was a strong possibility that they and their companies would hire fewer legal professionals if there was the availability of an economically beneficial legal AI solution which produced accurate, consistent, yield-producing output

Reusing cases to the automatic index assignment from textual documents

Paper presented at the Sixth German Workshop on Case-Based Reasoning: Foundations, Systems, and Applications, Rostock, Germany.This paper describes one solution developed to convert textual documents into formlike representations of cases. The experiences described by cases are textual descriptions of legal decisions. Indexing vocabulary and assignment theory contributed in gathering expert knowledge to define attributes and values as well as the required elements to employ template mining. Most index values are automatically extracted by the use of template mining. The multi-purpose index Theme is automatically assigned by reusing cases through an elaboration process. Seed cases are used to indicate values if the new case is a partial match to one in the case base