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Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), modern information technology has been more widely used in social governance, judicial reform, and the construction of a government under the rule of law, which has opened up a new realm of social governance by means of innovation (Ding Le, 2022). In top-level design, China has also repeatedly emphasized the need to vigorously cultivate cross-border, cross cutting and complex talents such as artificial intelligence and legal big data (Guo et al., 2019). In 2015, the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee clearly proposed the “National Big Data Strategy” for the first time (Kong, 2020). The Action Plan for Promoting Big Data Development released in 2015 proposed to “innovate the talent training mode, establish and improve the multi-level and multi type big data talent training system” (Bielecki et al., 2022). In July 2017, the State Council issued the Development Plan for a New Generation of Artificial Intelligence, and there were 18 times of “education” in three aspects: strategic situation, key tasks, and safeguard measures. It is clearly proposed to “accelerate the training of horizontal composite talents of 'AI+ law' and encourage the expansion of the interdisciplinary integration of 'AI+ law'” (Jones & Strevens, 2022). According to the requirements of national strategic deployment, colleges and universities need to actively cultivate law talents who are proficient in legal knowledge, good at using big data and artificial intelligence technology, and promoting the modernization of national governance capacity and governance system (Alanzi, 2020).
The technological transformation of artificial intelligence is growing exponentially, gradually and profoundly changing (Mccarthy, 2022). For legal education, it is also a challenge and an opportunity (Moria, 2022). In sharp contrast, legal big data and AI talents are facing a huge gap, which has become a weak point hindering the development of legal big data and AI industries. According to the Big Data Talent Report, as of 2018, there are only 460000 big data talents nationwide, and the gap of big data talents in the next three to five years will be as high as 1.5 million (Mateo, 2021). Knowing the new challenges and opportunities to legal education, as well as what is effective legal education, it is worth carefully discussing and planning for the future (Mccarthy, 2022). The maturity of artificial intelligence technology is bringing unprecedented challenges to legal education (Nikitas et al., 2020). Whether it is “born digital” or the new title of “the second machine age”, it shows the transformative impact of AI on society (Noone, 2022), not to mention the possibility of reconstruction of new technologies, new humans and new laws after the arrival of “intelligent explosion” or “technological singularity” (Prinsloo&Kaliisa, 2022). The future of AI is undoubtedly bright, but AI (essentially a technology that can learn and adapt itself) poses an unprecedented challenge to law, practice and morality (Ruiz, 2020).