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Robot Sophia comes of age

26 July 2018 / Matthew Kay
Issue: 7803 / Categories: Features , Technology
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Matthew Kay introduces the robot lawyers of the future & recommends making friends with AI

Robot Sophia was granted citizenship in Saudi Arabia last year. If you haven’t heard of her (though should we even be using these pronouns?) Sophia is a humanoid robot, capable of not only delivering a speech, but, scarily, expressing opinions about how robots should be entitled to the same rights as humans. Whether a marketing ploy or not, Sophia is eerily human like and makes you wonder whether we are one step closer to creating sentient AI beings.

With this in mind, it’s particularly worrying that lecturers in The Times’ The Brief warned earlier this year that law schools are not teaching their students technology and the law, which is leaving them ‘dangerously exposed’ (The Brief , 25 January 2018). At a time when robots and AI systems are not only used in a variety of professions including the law, but also in the home as an assistant, it’s scary that law qualifications—the LPC and the proposed

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Gilson Gray—Linda Pope

Gilson Gray—Linda Pope

Partner joins family law team inLondon

Jackson Lees Group—five promotions

Jackson Lees Group—five promotions

Private client division announces five new partners

Taylor Wessing—Max Millington

Taylor Wessing—Max Millington

Banking and finance team welcomes partner in London

NEWS
The landmark Supreme Court’s decision in Johnson v FirstRand Bank Ltd—along with Rukhadze v Recovery Partners—redefine fiduciary duties in commercial fraud. Writing in NLJ this week, Mary Young of Kingsley Napley analyses the implications of the rulings
Barristers Ben Keith of 5 St Andrew’s Hill and Rhys Davies of Temple Garden Chambers use the arrest of Simon Leviev—the so-called Tinder Swindler—to explore the realities of Interpol red notices, in this week's NLJ
Mazur v Charles Russell Speechlys [2025] has upended assumptions about who may conduct litigation, warn Kevin Latham and Fraser Barnstaple of Kings Chambers in this week's NLJ. But is it as catastrophic as first feared?
Lord Sales has been appointed to become the Deputy President of the Supreme Court after Lord Hodge retires at the end of the year
Limited liability partnerships (LLPs) are reportedly in the firing line in Chancellor Rachel Reeves upcoming Autumn budget
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