Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the latest technology to reach the law, but its impact, although still unpredictable, seems extraordinary. AI and Blockchain are complementary and synergistic technologies in the digital business.

While AI helps us to value, understand, recognize, and decide, the Blockchain helps us to verify, execute, and register. While machine learning (ML) methods, which is one of the most developed areas of AI today, help us find opportunities and improve decision making by predicting and processing large data sets, intelligent contracts built on Blockchain technology can automate the verification of the transactional parts of the process, providing immutability, security and decentralized access to data.

But also, AI can be the right tool to overcome the problems identified so far regarding smart contracts, such as the recognition of flaws in the formation of contracts or the existence of illegal practices. In addition to ML, another branch of AI on which work is being done more actively is the so-called natural language processing (NLP). The development of NLP is essential for ML to reach its potential by analyzing not only smart contracts, but also ‘traditional’ contracts, applicable legislation and court decisions, and going even further in analyzing the intent of the parties. 

As Kevin Werbach says, leading expert on Blockchain technology, «building a computerized system able to interpret smart contracts like humans can is effectively a challenge for artificial intelligence». Thus, while getting smart contracts to incorporate Artificial Intelligence techniques seems to be the way to make them really smart, we must not lose sight of the fact that, as the World Economic Forum recently stated, “building consumer trust is the key to unlocking AI’s true potential”, and at this point, there is still a long way to go. 

Read more: https://www.thetechnolawgist.com/2020/12/07/does-the-future-of-smart-contracts-depend-on-artificial-intelligence/