50 LEXPERT MAGAZINE
|
SEPTEMBER 2017
FEATURE
GARRY KASPAROV WROTE,
"Playing chess, I learned the dramatic effect com-
bining humans and machines. Humans have intuition, can recognise patterns and po-
sitions, and machines have brute-force of calculation and memory. By bringing these
capabilities together in other walks of life, we can achieve incredible results." One of
these results is Artificial Intelligence (AI) in M&A due diligence.
Kasparov has credibility, or perhaps notoriety, in this regard. In his "Waking Up"
podcast, philosopher and neuroscientist Sam Harris reminded Kasparov, "You will go
down in history as the first person to be beaten by a machine in an intellectual pursuit
where you were the most advanced member of our species."
1
Kasparov points out that
he actually beat IBM's Deep Blue in 1996, though he lost to it a year later. Kasparov
wanted a so-called "rubber match" to decide the matter forever, which did not happen.
Just like in M&A: once the deal is completed, a rematch is nearly impossible.
Although not quite synonymous, the terms AI and cognitive computing are used
interchangeably herein if other authors did so. By either term, we are considering the
following: "Modeled aer human learning,
smart machines process massive data, iden-
tifying patterns. ese patterns are used to
'create' entirely new patterns, allowing ma-
chines to test hypotheses and find solutions
unknown to the original programmers."
2
Voluminous due diligence was not al-
The promise of Artificial Intelligence
in M&A — performing extensive
and reliable due diligence searches
rapidly — will change corporate
law in ways we can't yet predict
BY JEAN CUMMING
3.0
Due
PHOTO:
SHUTTERSTOCK
DISCLAIMER
This is an excerpt from
a paper written for the Osgoode
Professional LLM Corporate
Transactions course.
Diligence
