SHARON@SU-SCORE.ARPA (07/07/83)
From: Sharon Bergman <SHARON@SU-SCORE.ARPA> PH.D. ORAL JULY 15, 1983 ROOM 252, MARGARET JACKS HALL 2:15 P.M. AN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE APPROACH TO LEGAL REASONING Anne v.d.L. Gardner The analysis of legal problems is a relatively new domain for artificial intelligence. This thesis describes an AI model of legal reasoning, giving special attention to the distinctive characteristics of the domain, and reports on a program based on the model. Major features include (1) distinguishing between questions the program has enough information to resolve and questions that competent professionals could argue either way; (2) using incompletely defined ("open-textured") technical concepts; (3) combining the use of knowledge expressed as rules and knowledge expressed as examples; and (4) combining the use of professional knowledge and commonsense knowledge. All these features are likely to prove important in other domains besides law. Previous AI research has left them largely unexplored.