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"In 1970 I found little difficulty staying 30 years ahead of the man in the street, and now I find it difficult to stay 18 months ahead of the man on the street."
- Vernor Vinge
 |
| Lawyer Program | ||
| Software that could listen to legal argument. |
If you get in trouble, you'd better know the URL of a good lawyer program.
| Spivey held up one hand. "First I must tell you, Mr. Eng, that what we're about to discuss is highly classified. Top secret."
Logan winced. "I want my lawyer program." The officer smiled placatingly. "I assure you it's all legal..." |
| From Earth,
by David Brin. Published by Bantam in 1990 Additional resources -
|
In the book, lawyer programs are also described as being good for investigating how to work with (and around) existing laws:
Not that fighting was strictly illegal. Some gangs with good lawyer programs had found loopholes and tricks. Ra Boys, in particular, were brutal with sarcasm... pushing a guy so hard he'd lose his temper, and accept a nighttime battle rendezvous or some suicidal dare...
It's not exactly the same, but a lawyer program has to talk to someone - or something. See the robot judge from Harry Harrison's 1959 story Robot Justice. That robot must be running some kind of legal software. Also, see the law clerk robot from Pohl's The Midas Plague.
As far as I know, the first "knowledge-based systems" for the law appeared in the early 1980's. The prize for earliest speculation on this topic goes to lawyers themselves, and dates from a 1949 paper by Lee Loevinger titled Jurimetrics. The Next Step Forward.
But even though no geeps were watching now, dozens must have recorded both parties converging on this spot... chronicle's they'd happily zap-fax to police investigating a brawl after the fact.
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| Save Your Brain's Connectome, Upload Yourself Elsewhere |
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'I'm afraid to tell you this Mr. Quaid, but you have suffered a schizoed embolism...'
'It drew its power from six square yards of sunpower screens on its low curved roof.'
'...lifted themselves to skimming flight upon whirling helicopters."
'Twenty rocket tugs towed it from its Earth hangar out into space.'
I don't need it to go fast, it just needs to amble along.
'The program raced up the screen one scan line at a time, subtly smoothing, deleting and coloring.'
