Use of argumentation methods applied to legal reasoning is a relatively new field of study. The book provides a survey of the leading problems, and outlines how future research using argumentation-based methods show great promise of leading to useful solutions. The problems studied include not only these of argument evaluation and argument invention, but also analysis of specific kinds of evidence commonly used in law, like witness testimony, circumstantial evidence, forensic evidence and character evidence. New tools for analyzing these kinds of evidence are introduced.
Use of argumentation methods applied to legal reasoning is a relatively new field of study. The book provides a survey of the leading problems, and outlines how future research using argumentation-based methods show great promise of leading to useful solutions. The problems studied include not only these of argument evaluation and argument invention, but also analysis of specific kinds of evidence commonly used in law, like witness testimony, circumstantial evidence, forensic evidence and character evidence. New tools for analyzing these kinds of evidence are introduced.
Recent work in artificial intelligence has increasingly turned to argumentation as a rich, interdisciplinary area of research that can provide new methods related to evidence and reasoning in the area of law. Douglas Walton provides an introduction to basic concepts, tools and methods in argumentation theory and artificial intelligence as applied to the analysis and evaluation of witness testimony. He shows how witness testimony is by its nature inherently fallible and sometimes subject to disastrous failures. At the same time such testimony can provide evidence that is not only necessary but inherently reasonable for logically guiding legal experts to accept or reject a claim. Walton shows how to overcome the traditional disdain for witness testimony as a type of evidence shown by logical positivists, and the views of trial sceptics who doubt that trial rules deal with witness testimony in a way that yields a rational decision-making process.
A leading expert in informal logic, Douglas Walton turns his attention in this new book to how reasoning operates in trials and other legal contexts, with special emphasis on the law of evidence. The new model he develops, drawing on methods of argumentation theory that are gaining wide acceptance in computing fields like artificial intelligence, can be used to identify, analyze, and evaluate specific types of legal argument. In contrast with approaches that rely on deductive and inductive logic and rule out many common types of argument as fallacious, Walton&’s aim is to provide a more expansive view of what can be considered &"reasonable&" in legal argument when it is construed as a dynamic, rule-governed, and goal-directed conversation. This dialogical model gives new meaning to the key notions of relevance and probative weight, with the latter analyzed in terms of pragmatic criteria for what constitutes plausible evidence rather than truth.
This book describes how text analytics and computational models of legal reasoning will improve legal IR and let computers help humans solve legal problems.
The investigation of computational models of argument is a rich and fascinating interdisciplinary research field with two ultimate aims: the theoretical goal of understanding argumentation as a cognitive phenomenon by modeling it in computer programs, and the practical goal of supporting the development of computer-based systems able to engage in argumentation-related activities with human users or among themselves. The biennial International Conferences on Computational Models of Argument (COMMA) provide a dedicated forum for the presentation and discussion of the latest advancements in the field, and cover both basic research and innovative applications. This book presents the proceedings of COMMA 2020. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, COMMA 2020 was held as an online event on the originally scheduled dates of 8 -11 September 2020, organised by the University of Perugia, Italy. The book includes 28 full papers and 13 short papers selected from a total of 78 submissions, the abstracts of 3 invited talks and 13 demonstration abstracts. The interdisciplinary nature of the field is reflected, and contributions cover both theory and practice. Theoretical contributions include new formal models, the study of formal or computational properties of models, designs for implemented systems and experimental research. Practical papers include applications to medicine, law and criminal investigation, chatbots and online product reviews. The argument-mining trend from previous COMMA’s is continued, while an emerging trend this year is the use of argumentation for explainable AI. The book provided an overview of the latest work on computational models of argument, and will be of interest to all those working in the field.
Argumentation is all around us. Letters to the Editor often make points of cons- tency, and “Why” is one of the most frequent questions in language, asking for r- sons behind behaviour. And argumentation is more than ‘reasoning’ in the recesses of single minds, since it crucially involves interaction. It cements the coordinated social behaviour that has allowed us, in small bands of not particularly physically impressive primates, to dominate the planet, from the mammoth hunt all the way up to organized science. This volume puts argumentation on the map in the eld of Arti cial Intelligence. This theme has been coming for a while, and some famous pioneers are chapter authors, but we can now see a broader systematic area emerging in the sum of topics and results. As a logician, I nd this intriguing, since I see AI as ‘logic continued by other means’, reminding us of broader views of what my discipline is about. Logic arose originally out of re ection on many-agent practices of disputation, in Greek Ant- uity, but also in India and China. And logicians like me would like to return to this broader agenda of rational agency and intelligent interaction. Of course, Aristotle also gave us a formal systems methodology that deeply in uenced the eld, and eventually connected up happily with mathematical proof and foundations.
Current Legal Issues, like its sister volume Current Legal Problems, is based upon an annual colloquium held at Univesity College London. Each year leading scholars from around the world gather to discuss the relationship between law and another discipline of thought. Each colloquium examines how the external discipline is conceived in legal thought and argument, how the law is pictured in that discipline, and analyses points of controversy in the use, and abuse, of extra-legal arguments within legal theory and practice. Law and Neuroscience, the latest volume in the Current Legal Issues series, offers an insight into the state of law and nueroscience scholarship today. Focussing on the inter-connections between the two disciplines, it addresses the key issues informing current debates.
The availability of very large data sets and the increase in computing power to process them has led to a renewed intensity in corporate and governmental use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies. This groundbreaking book, the first devoted entirely to the growing presence of AI in the legal profession, responds to the necessity of building up a discipline that due to its novelty requires the pooling of knowledge and experiences of well-respected experts in the AI field, taking into account the impact of AI on the law and legal practice. Essays by internationally known expert authors introduce the essentials of AI in a straightforward and intelligible style, offering jurists as many practical examples and business cases as possible so that they are able to understand the real application of this technology and its impact on their jobs and lives. Elements of the analysis include the following: crucial terms: natural language processing, machine learning and deep learning; regulations in force in major jurisdictions; ethical and social issues; labour and employment issues, including the impact that robots have on employment; prediction of outcome in the legal field (judicial proceedings, patent granting, etc.); massive analysis of documents and identification of patterns from which to derive conclusions; AI and taxation; issues of competition and intellectual property; liability and responsibility of intelligent systems; AI and cybersecurity; AI and data protection; impact on state tax revenues; use of autonomous killer robots in the military; challenges related to privacy; the need to embrace transparency and sustainability; pressure brought by clients on prices; minority languages and AI; danger that the existing gap between large and small businesses will further increase; how to avoid algorithmic biases when AI decides; AI application to due diligence; AI and non-disclosure agreements; and the role of chatbots. Interviews with pioneers in the field are included, so readers get insights into the issues that people are dealing with in day-to-day actualities. Whether conceiving AI as a transformative technology of the labour market and training or an economic and business sector in need of legal advice, this introduction to AI will help practitioners in tax law, labour law, competition law and intellectual property law understand what AI is, what it serves, what is the state of the art and the potential of this technology, how they can benefit from its advantages and what are the risks it presents. As the global economy continues to suffer the repercussions of a framework that was previously fundamentally self-regulatory, policymakers will recognize the urgent need to formulate rules to properly manage the future of AI.
