Artificial intelligence and judicial systems : opportunities and challenges at the intersection of AI and courts of justice
Artificial intelligence and judicial systems : opportunities and challenges at the intersection of AI and courts of justice
Date
2020
Authors
Toloto Bernardo, Leonam
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Abstract
The adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the judicial systems is a phenomenon that has
been gaining strength in recent years and presents opportunities and challenges for the
achievement of fundamental rights. In order to offer an up to date material on this regard for
Human Rights defenders, this work provides an overview of the leading technologies
involved in AI, Machine Learning, and Big Data, starting with their applications in two case
studies: China e Estonia. While the former already experiences the presence of AI-judges in
its cyber courts focused on internet-related cases, the latter is developing an ongoing project
that foresees AI's implementation as a decision-maker in small cases in the first instance of its
judicial system. These cases are followed by a comparative analysis of recent researches that
applied NLP and Machine Learning to carry out predictive experiments on judicial decisions,
with an accuracy rate of up to 90%. This panorama serves as a support to understand the main
opportunities at the intersection of AI and justice — such as the speedup of processes,
bringing more efficiency, and reducing the backlog of cases, which hypothetically guarantees
for individuals a more accessible and of a better quality judicial procedures. Still, some risks
arise at the same proportion — such as the threat of a repetition of discrimination patterns,
the perpetuation of inequalities, and loss of human job positions. To address these challenges,
legal instruments and other mechanisms to regulate the use of AI emerge worldwide, some of
them targeting judicial systems in particular.
Description
Second semester University: University of Deusto, Bilbao
Keywords
artificial intelligence,
judicial system,
China,
Estonia,
internet,
human rights,
discrimination