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The last paragraph in the article is a real kicker: they're going to have to parse millions of documents to build their case. That's going to take an enormous a
by c-slice 10y ago
The last paragraph in the article is a real kicker: they're going to have to parse millions of documents to build their case. That's going to take an enormous amount of time and staffing costs. It'll be interesting to see this play out in the courts or if a settlement is reached before trial.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago> That's going to take an enormous amount of time and staffing costs. Is it? Can't they scan all of those docs in, OCR them (or process the electronic docs if they're already in that format), and use e-discovery? I hear so often on HN that legal firms no longer need junior associates or paralegals for that work, as the software can do the heavy lifting.
- CapitalistCartr 10y agoMy wife is in law school. The work software can do is still severely limited. I personally think we are on the cusp of a revolution in this, but we aren't there yet. Watson could probably do it, if it were as important as doctoring. Software has made major strides. The old way of sending multiple copies between sides to be hand redone for each change required stupid amounts of labor. Now we have Word. But understanding the importance of particular documents still requires humans. For now.
- toomuchtodo 10y agoThanks for the context. I appreciate it!
- kbenson 10y ago> Watson could probably do it, if it were as important as doctoring. I initially read that with the alternative meaning of doctoring, which is is a rather amusing take on it.
- HillRat 10y agoIBM actually has a system trained on a legal corpus, used for tracking down potentially-relevant case and statute law. There isn't a huge amount of client funding in legal AI compared to other applications, and the problems are much harder than more restricted domains like medicine and pharma, but there's enough cash to do some interesting work.
- morgante 10y agoYes, software can make discovery a lot more efficient. Apparently they're not willing to pay for it. > Investigators have “limited” technological means and would need “extremely efficient software” worth about 200,000 euros to speed up their work.
- jtrtoo 10y agoMaybe Google has a solution... err, wait...
- dogma1138 10y agoWould be funny if they'll use Google's software in the future to parse the legal documents that were confiscated in the raid.
- calbear81 10y agoIsn't this an opportunity for a technologically savvy law firm to help the tax office take on the hard work in return for a % of the settlement? We pay whistleblowers rewards for ratting out tax evaders, why wouldn't we pay for expertise if it means increasing the chances of winning. 50% is better than 0% if it means giving them a fighting chance.
- c-slice 10y agoI think automated discovery software for tax law is still probably very limited in capability.
- dogma1138 10y agoI've seen some forensic accounting software that is quite good at uncovering illicit transactions, however in this case they need to prove that Google didn't violate the law but intentionally abuse it so I don't know what they'll even be looking for.