Among the issues firms are handling: rights to the datasets used for training machine-learning algorithms, ownership of the algorithms created from third-party data, and liability for property damage or personal injury caused by an autonomous system.

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Businesses that rely on AI are seeking legal advice before an anticipated wave of lawsuits over algorithms. In the absence of regulations specific to AI, such suits would be based on consumer-protection and product-liability laws, said David Freeman Engstrom, a law professor at Stanford University. Many AI issues will be hashed out in the courts, he said.

“There’s going to be a lot of litigation over this stuff,” he said. Big law firms will “provide prophylactic advice on how you can avoid litigation. Once litigation does arise, they help companies out in jams,” he added.