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.