Il diritto sta affrontando molte sfide, dovute all’emergere di nuovi modelli imprenditoriali (quale la c.d. sharing economy) e alla crescente automatizzazione e robotizzazione delle funzioni un tempo svolte da avvocati e professori. Nuove soluzioni si affacciano sul mercato dei servizi legali: da un lato, software basati sull’intelligenza artificiale eseguono approfondite ricerche giuridiche con maggior precisione, rapidità, e profondità di analisi di quanto possa fare un essere umano. Dall’altra, chatbot e piattaforme online stanno offrendo standardizzati pareri legali per casi più semplici, i quali non richiedono un particolare approfondimento qualititivo, ma possono essere risolti soprattutto in base a set di dati statistici tratti da casi precedenti (analisi dei c.d. big data). La tecnologia, inoltre, puo’ apportare sconvolgimenti in mercati consolidati: è il caso del blockchain e delle initial coin offering (ICO), un innovativo sistema di finanziamento che si situa tra la tradizionale quotazione sul mercato borsistico e l’equity crowdfunding, ma che presenta alcuni profili di rischio. L’Autore si chiede se il legislatore e la professione forense saranno in grado di anticipare i cambiamenti strutturali in corso e, anzi, di guidarli; oppure se, passivamente, si adegueranno ad un predominio della tecnologia anche nel settore giuridico.

I am very pleased today to welcome such distinguished panelists to the School of Management of our University, Shinawatra International University. The topics which we will briefly touch upon today are indeed fascinating, and raise relevant questions on the importance of Law and how this latter can keep up with the frenetic pace of technology revolution. We all wonder how the legal practice is likely to change due to technology disruption, mainly due to the adoption of artificial intelligence. At the same time, legal scholars are also requested to find innovative solutions to complex innovations, which are reshaping equity capital markets and, consequently, Company Law and Corporate Governance. The agenda of today is as follows: ▪ A brief introduction over technology innovations in the law practice (namely, artificial intelligence and machine learning) and in current legal models (namely, initial coin offerings) ▪ An overview upon technology progress, especially fueled by the European civilization ▪ The relationship between financial markets and corporate governance, with a focus upon equity crowdfunding in Italy ▪ Artificial intelligence and its legal implications ▪ Protection of intellectual property rights related to technologic innovations. 1. Law & Technology It is not long time ago when all of us legal practitioners used to examine bulk law books whenever we had to try a case. We still find occasional comfort in a solid civil code or a citation volume, manually cross-checking previous cases and evaluating whether they have been overruled or can be supportive to our angle. However, it is well known that computerization of legal research (through database, such as Lexis Nexis or Leggi d’Italia) has made this meticulous yet low-productive human research not up to date anymore, and increased the efficiency of legal practitioners. Research and case checking assignments that might have taken hours could now be done in a matter of minutes. Therefore, it can be said that technology is likely to expand work for lawyers, since it makes them more productive, rather than displacing them. The same approach may be adopted towards the adoption of machine learning and artificial intelligence (“AI”) in law firms. With a faster and increasingly higher sophistication, top-notch software can provide tremendous benefits to law firms. AI and advances in machine learning have enabled software to complete data-intensive tasks and recognize patterns in data. Computers are able to identify relevant information and spot mistakes and inconsistencies much faster and more accurately than legal practitioners.  Hence, it is not necessarily negative if technology frees up those younger attorneys to do more brief writing, analysis, or other higher order tasks that require judgment and strategic thinking. While some fear the rise of the robots, it is actually more [continua..]