Singularity, Computers, and the Law

The music video above, Singularity, is by Drasko Vucevic and was made in collaboration with AudioAndroid, Yoko K., Yongsub Song and Yongchan Kim. It evokes images of the Machine’s road towards singularity, a concept popularized by Ray Kurzwell where computer intelligence exceeds our own and leads to Utopian advances in science, culture and medicine, including virtual immortality. Kurzwell predicts revolutionary changes within the next ten to twenty years. His predictions are based on the exponential growth in technology and explosion of data that we have already observed in the last ten years. These changes in technology and information are what make e-discovery so difficult. These changes also inspired my movie with Jason R. Baron, Did You Know?

This is interesting stuff you might want to look into. Helps put into perspective the rapid changes we are now seeing in the legal profession. It seems clear that technological change is just beginning and is accelerating rapidly. Our relevance and effectiveness as lawyers in the future depends on our ability to ride this change, to be empowered by it. That is one reason I put so much focus on training in e-discovery law.

I kind of doubt that we will attain immortality like Kurzwell predicts, or that the change will be all Utopian. But I feel sure that the changes will be dramatic. I am also confident that, if we try hard, the changes will be positive. And, like many others in the electronic discovery community, I am working hard for the law and the legal profession to remain strong in the future. It is important for law and lawyers to stay relevant, to be forces for truth and justice, and not for oppression and propaganda. It is important for law and lawyers, like the rest of society, to become enlightened masters of technology, and to thrive, not drown, in the flood of information.