Are Law Professors Obsolete?

In an article that sounds more like it came from a science fiction novel than the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers report on a new technology that could actually make education unnecessary. Scientists have had early success with implanting a retinal chip that projects information to the front of a user's visual field. Originally, the chip would only display information sent remotely from a related device. The idea was for the chip to act sort of like a tele-prompter, projecting information out in front of someone for them to read or respond to. It could be used for GPS information or even by speech-makers. That part of the technology is several years old, though. The new breakthrough is that researchers have now discovered a way to link the chip remotely to an Internet feed which will respond to requests in the user's brain.

Again, this sounds like science fiction, but it's not as fantastic as it sounds. The "commands" it receives from the brain are actually in the form of electrical impulse patterns. The chip has to be "trained" just like voice recognition software. So the chip learns over time how to determine what the user is requesting based on the pattern of impulses sent from the brain. Right now, in the early stages, it only works with (are you ready for this?) Wikipedia. Obviously, however, the hope is that users will eventually have access to the entire body of information on the Internet.

So that raises the question: Are our days as professors numbered? What's the point of a legal education if anyone can immediately call up the answer to a legal question and rattle it off in court? Will lawyers eventually just be actors? Will law professors just be acting coaches?

It sounds like knowledge is actually on its way to becoming obsolete.