Machines Do The Work of Thousands of Lawyers

A story published in the New York Times this morning (March 5 2011) indicated that new computers armed with artificial intelligence can do the work of thousands of lawyers in vetting documents in the discovery process of a lawsuit.  The cost has dropped from millions of dollars to mere hundreds of thousands of dollars.  I won't go into the rising cost of lawsuits that have relegated litigation to the wealthy but, another thought crossed my mind.  What about those lawyers who will be unemployed in this cost saving measure.  Not an idle thought.

The G20 world is based on innovation and the export of low tech jobs to less developed countries.  This has resulted in the loss of millions of jobs in the United States and elsewhere.  On the flip side these have created millions of jobs in countries like India.  It has fired the economy of China to being the second largest in the world.  In economics it is called comparative advantage.  Everybody wins. The developed economies keep the higher paid skilled jobs.  The less developed economies get jobs at better rates than t workers normally make.

The challenge of the G20 world is to keep its edge in innovation while exporting low tech jobs to developing economies.  Israel has done this very well, but it's a small country.  It requires that education levels in the higher developed countries will produce people who can create and sustain innovation.  America is falling back in creating a literate/numerate work force.  Yes there is a sliver of highly educated people doing innovative work.  But generally he United States are falling behind.  Compare this to India or China.  These economies are creating better trained workers who will, in turn, drive innovation.  China is already the world leader in battery storage devices for electrically powered automobiles.

Getting back to the smart computer.  In the past, innovation has created employment.  Not so much for the innovator--it does not take thousand of job to create and maintain Facebook.  But what about the labour situation where the job dense task is taken over by a machine!  Where do the low tech jobs go?  Who replaces the thousands of lawyers who now don't have document reading/analysis to do?  In a world where machines will be doing more and more of the work the dislocation of workers even at the mid level of employment will be severe.  Watson may have all the answers.  But who will be listening. More of this later.

Bernie.