Last December, Centre for BOLD Cities board member Jaap van den Herik (Leiden University) was invited to talk about combining legal technologies at the annual Legal+ Summit in Shenzhen (China). Van den Herik, who has researched and published on eLaw technologies for years, used this opportunity to talk about various issues.
Speaking about the challenges of online search for legal applications and other questions in the field of 'the law in the age of exobytes', Van den Herik explained that the sheer volumes and exponential growth of online information may have disastrous effects on a legal system, if the technologies at hand are not properly appended for use in the legal field. AI technologies, for instance, may prove very useful for legal purposes, but also come with potential bottlenecks in the forms of existing legacies and biases.
Van den Herik concluded his talk by focusing on three aspects of the future: the technological future, which encompasses opportunities for AI and machine learning, the legal future, which comes with challenges on improving the GDPR and CCPA laws, and the societal future, in which understanding cultural differences and corresponding ethical feelings play a vital role, claiming that, in all cases, education is vital to success.
