Introduction: Artificial intelligence, technology, and the law

On 25 March 2017, the Centre for Innovation Law and Policy at the University of Toronto hosted a Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Technology, and the Law. The conference was supported by generous funding from the University of Toronto Press and from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The contributions to this special issue of the UTLJ are based on articles originally presented at the conference. Some of the speakers discussed the kinds of tasks that machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) can perform, when used to conduct legal research, to identify biases and discrepancies at the doctrinal level and in the performance of lawyers and judges, and to facilitate access to justice for those who cannot readily afford legal services. Other speakers considered the challenges that algorithms based on ML and NLP pose to democratic conceptions of legal authority. Taken together, the articles offered a range of views on the prospects and perils of AI for the practice of law and for the legal system as a whole. This introduction briefly describes the contributions, moving roughly from the more theoretical to the more concrete aspects of these issues.