About DataLex
DataLex - Smart legal decision support and legal expert systems - AustLII 's rule-based legal inferencing platform
DataLex is developed by Andrew Mowbray, Philip Chung & Graham Greenleaf, with assistance of AustLII staff
Background articles on AustLII's approach to using AI in law
Articles by others
Knowledge-base Examples
Demonstrations and Training Exercises
These applications ('apps') are knowledge-bases of varying degrees of detail, used to demonstrate features of DataLex knowledge bases, and to teach others how to write knowledge-bases. Select 'Run consultation' at the top of any knowledge-base in order to run the app, so as to test the types of conclusions that can be reached by using it. All of these apps are for demonstration purposes only, and are still being further developed.
- Community Gaming Regulation consultation - This example is based on the Community Gaming Regulation 2020 (NSW). See the Media Release for background to this app. Parts of the app can also be run from the 'Consult' option on any section of the Regulation.
- Modern Slavery Act consultation - This example is based on the Modern Slavery Act 2018 (Cth), and can also be run from the sections of the Act. It is an example of coding the whole of an Act.
- Electoral law consultation - This app concerns disqualification from standing for federal Parliament under s44 of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (Cth) and sections of the Commonwealth Electoral Act (Cth). This has been a contentious issue in Australian politics. It is used for examples in this journal article.
- Freedom of Information consultation - This is a simple example concerning access to documents under section 11 of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) and related sections. Various small knowledge-bases (some developed by students) are linked.
- Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) procedures consultation (PrivacyActKB) - This example focuses on procedural steps in making a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner and appealing against a determination. It is INCLUDED in (ie called from) this Knowledge Base dealing with other sections of the Privacy Act, so a to construct a more complex app by linking various knowledge-bases.
- Goal Tests - These are some very abstract (non-legal) examples to demonstrate the differences between backward and forward chaining rules. These are used to do a class exercise to determine (for example) 'Is D correct/true?' by comparing the intuitive steps we take to find an answer, with the steps that the Dataex program takes to do so.
Older knowledge-bases
These older
knowledge-bases have been written some time ago and the law they include is not up-to-date. However, they are still useful as demonstrations how lengthier more complex knowledge-bases can be developed using the DataLex software (Copyright and Privacy consultations), or different features of the DataLex software such as case-based reasoning (Finder's cases) or document Generation (Simple will generator).
DataLex Web Utilities
- WebTopicList - all topics in alphabetical order
- WebChanges - recent topic changes in this web
- WebNotify - subscribe to an e-mail alert sent when topics change
- WebRss, WebAtom - RSS and ATOM news feeds of topic changes
- WebStatistics - listing popular topics and top contributors
- WebPreferences - preferences of this web