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Praying mantis bot has limber legs
TECHNOLOGY Insight Legal aids
–300 down, 999,700 to go–
Unleash the e-hounds Software that hunts through endless legal documents gets the go-ahead BEYOND the movies, being a lawyer keywords and other linguistic features isn’t all about making grandstanding to find relevant documents, much as closing statements that move the jury email spam filters learn to distinguish to tears. The reality for many is hours, scams and adverts from genuine days, and sometimes years combing messages. through mind-numbingly dull Gricks wanted to use predictive documents. That might be about to coding in the case, saying he expected change, as a recent judicial ruling in the it would cut the search to just two US has opened the doors to “predictive weeks and 1 per cent of the cost, but coding”. It is a software technique was opposed by the plaintiffs’ lawyer, designed to sift through millions of who believed humans would documents and spit out only those the outperform machines. In a landmark lawyer might need, saving them time ruling, the judge overturned the and – crucially – their clients’ money. objection and allowed Gricks to proceed. “It allows a lawyer to look at a small fraction of a much larger collection of “The system aims to sift millions of e-documents electronic documents,” says Thomas and present only the ones Gricks, a partner at the Schnader law the lawyer might need” firm in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Gricks is defending aircraft-hangar operator Landow Aviation against “It was the first case in the country, private-jet owners seeking and I think anywhere, where a judge compensation after a roof collapse in authorised someone to use predictive 2010. The “legal discovery” part of the coding over the objection of the other case involves examining about 2 million side,” says Gricks. Another case this emails and attachments, which Gricks year saw both parties and the judge estimates would take 20,000 person initially agree to use predictive coding, hours and so cost $2 million. Predictive although one of the parties has since coding lets him review a sample set changed their mind. of just a few thousand documents, But can software match a search marking each as either relevant or carried out by legal experts? In fact, it non-relevant. This marked set is used seems that computers can actually be to train the software to look for much better than humans at reviewing 22 | NewScientist | 23 June 2012
documents. That’s according to a study last year by Maura Grossman, a lawyer at New York firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, and Doug Oard at the University of Maryland in College Park. Both lawyers and software examined a collection of over 800,000 emails and attachments gathered as a result of the collapse of Enron. Predictive coding software was able to match and sometimes beat humans at finding relevant documents, while also being better at avoiding returning irrelevant material. In one case, when asked to flag emails related to document shredding, the human reviewers managed to miss one that said: “I’ll be shredding ‘till 11am” – but the software caught it (Richmond Journal of Law and Technology, vol 17, issue 3). “The courts are signalling that if properly implemented and validated, these tools are reasonable and defensible,” says Grossman. “I believe we will begin to see increased acceptance and adoption of technology-assisted approaches.” But why do lawyers want to reduce legal costs? To attract new clients, says Gricks. “We can try cases that weren’t being tried because it was too expensive to get through discovery.” n
THE forelegs of the praying mantis are unique for more than just their pious appearance. Their versatility is remarkable – the mantis uses them for walking, capturing prey and hanging on to it during a meal. They have now inspired a robot. Ramón Cardona of the InterAmerican University of Puerto Rico has built a prototype mechanical limb about 30 centimetres long that mimics the design of the mantis leg. Like its natural counterpart, it should give a robot the ability to walk, grab objects and manipulate them using the same limb. The mantis’s forelegs have a spiky claw near each tip that aids in trapping and grasping its prey. The claw can be stowed to allow a rodlike attachment called a tarsus to extend, upon which the insect walks. Cardona built a multi-jointed leg that worked similarly: walking, trapping objects, and even toying with them. A rotatable hip joint gives the device the dexterity to perform more than mere back-andforth walking motions, while an ankle joint allows the limb to hold objects in place on the ground. Cardona presented the work in May at the Florida Artificial Intelligence Research Society conference on Marco Island. He plans to perfect a gripper for the leg and then make a full praying-mantisinspired robot. Paul Marks n
Konrad Wothe/Minden Pictures/FLPA
Marcelo Del Pozo/Reuters
Praying mantis robot will have limber legs
–300 down, 999,700 to go–
Unleash the e-hounds Software that hunts through endless legal documents gets the go-ahead BEYOND the movies, being a lawyer keywords and other linguistic features isn’t all about making grandstanding to find relevant documents, much as closing statements that move the jury email spam filters learn to distinguish to tears. The reality for many is hours, scams and adverts from genuine days, and sometimes years combing messages. through mind-numbingly dull Gricks wanted to use predictive documents. That might be about to coding in the case, saying he expected change, as a recent judicial ruling in the it would cut the search to just two US has opened the doors to “predictive weeks and 1 per cent of the cost, but coding”. It is a software technique was opposed by the plaintiffs’ lawyer, designed to sift through millions of who believed humans would documents and spit out only those the outperform machines. In a landmark lawyer might need, saving them time ruling, the judge overturned the and – crucially – their clients’ money. objection and allowed Gricks to proceed. “It allows a lawyer to look at a small fraction of a much larger collection of “The system aims to sift millions of e-documents electronic documents,” says Thomas and present only the ones Gricks, a partner at the Schnader law the lawyer might need” firm in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Gricks is defending aircraft-hangar operator Landow Aviation against “It was the first case in the country, private-jet owners seeking and I think anywhere, where a judge compensation after a roof collapse in authorised someone to use predictive 2010. The “legal discovery” part of the coding over the objection of the other case involves examining about 2 million side,” says Gricks. Another case this emails and attachments, which Gricks year saw both parties and the judge estimates would take 20,000 person initially agree to use predictive coding, hours and so cost $2 million. Predictive although one of the parties has since coding lets him review a sample set changed their mind. of just a few thousand documents, But can software match a search marking each as either relevant or carried out by legal experts? In fact, it non-relevant. This marked set is used seems that computers can actually be to train the software to look for much better than humans at reviewing 22 | NewScientist | 23 June 2012
documents. That’s according to a study last year by Maura Grossman, a lawyer at New York firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, and Doug Oard at the University of Maryland in College Park. Both lawyers and software examined a collection of over 800,000 emails and attachments gathered as a result of the collapse of Enron. Predictive coding software was able to match and sometimes beat humans at finding relevant documents, while also being better at avoiding returning irrelevant material. In one case, when asked to flag emails related to document shredding, the human reviewers managed to miss one that said: “I’ll be shredding ‘till 11am” – but the software caught it (Richmond Journal of Law and Technology, vol 17, issue 3). “The courts are signalling that if properly implemented and validated, these tools are reasonable and defensible,” says Grossman. “I believe we will begin to see increased acceptance and adoption of technology-assisted approaches.” But why do lawyers want to reduce legal costs? To attract new clients, says Gricks. “We can try cases that weren’t being tried because it was too expensive to get through discovery.” n
THE forelegs of the praying mantis are unique for more than just their pious appearance. Their versatility is remarkable – the mantis uses them for walking, capturing prey and hanging on to it during a meal. They have now inspired a robot. Ramón Cardona of the InterAmerican University of Puerto Rico has built a prototype mechanical limb about 30 centimetres long that mimics the design of the mantis leg. Like its natural counterpart, it should give a robot the ability to walk, grab objects and manipulate them using the same limb. The mantis’s forelegs have a spiky claw near each tip that aids in trapping and grasping its prey. The claw can be stowed to allow a rodlike attachment called a tarsus to extend, upon which the insect walks. Cardona built a multi-jointed leg that worked similarly: walking, trapping objects, and even toying with them. A rotatable hip joint gives the device the dexterity to perform more than mere back-andforth walking motions, while an ankle joint allows the limb to hold objects in place on the ground. Cardona presented the work in May at the Florida Artificial Intelligence Research Society conference on Marco Island. He plans to perfect a gripper for the leg and then make a full praying-mantisinspired robot. Paul Marks n
Konrad Wothe/Minden Pictures/FLPA
Marcelo Del Pozo/Reuters
Praying mantis robot will have limber legs