Computers have long been utilized in the sphere of law in the form of word processors, spreadsheets, legal research systems, and practice management systems. Most exciting, however, has been the prospect of using artificial intelligence techniques to create so-called legal reasoning systems—computer programs that can help to resolve legal disputes by reasoning in resolving problems involving the meaning and applicability of rules set out in a legal text.
Early attempts at automated legal reasoning focused on the doctrinal nature of law. They viewed law as a set of rules, and the resulting computer systems were engineered to make legal decisions by determining the consequences that followed when its stored set of legal rules was applied to a collection of evidentiary of the world that is far beyond their capabilities at present or in the foreseeable future.
Proponents of legal reasoning systems now argue that accommodating reference to, and reasoning from, cases improves the chances of producing a successful system. By focusing on the practice of reasoning from precedents, researchers have designed systems called case-based reasoners, which store individual example cases in their knowledge bases. In contrast to a a system that can discover for itself the factors that make cases similar in relevant ways.
What this question is testing
Your task
Identify why the author included the referenced detail at that point in the passage — its function, not its content.
Common trap
Answers that merely repeat or summarize the topic of the detail instead of describing the role it plays.
Winning move
Ask what job the detail does for the paragraph, then for the passage's broader point.
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