Around 35 percent of 320 large US law firm leaders think it’s realistic that within five years to a decade junior lawyers could be replaced by sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) computer systems, according to a survey reported by ARS Technica.

In a similar survey in 2011, only 25 percent of leaders had responded this way, reported ARS

A whopping 47 per cent of respondents said they could envisage machines replacing paralegals, while 35 per cent thought this could happen to first-year associates but only 19% for two to three-year qualified associates.

The report emphasised that the process of such replacement is under way with an artificial intelligence program in the bankruptcy space being developed at Dentons dubbed ROSS and touted as “just like a human, it’s getting its experience in a law firm and being able to learn and get better”.

US-based law firm Latham & Watkins has also been reported to have been test-driving new applications based on the natural language IBM machine learning system Watson, which famously defeated the best humans at the TV quiz show format Jeopardy.