Judge v robot or judge and cobot?
Tania Sourdin · Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2021
Chapter Five considers how automated forms of decision making may impact the judicial role. First, a distinction is made between forms of artificial intelligence (AI) that mimic and completely replace human judges (‘Judge AI’) and forms of AI that assist judges at varying stages of the judicial process (‘supportive Judge AI’). It is noted that supportive Judge AI has gained more support in the literature as it does not pose the same risks of usurping the judicial role that fully automated Judge AI does. At the same time, however, there is consideration of the various risks associated with the uptake of supportive Judge AI. These include, for example, issues arising from judicial ‘undertrust’ and ‘overtrust’ of such systems. However, despite the contention that exists here, this chapter acknowledges that the ultimately question is not if AI will reshape the judicial function but when. In this regard, consideration is had to the extent to which humans will be involved in judicial decision making into the future and the various factors influencing future AI uptake. There is a concluding consideration of the types of cases and areas of law where the use of supportive or standalone Judge AI may be more problematic. These include ‘hard’ or aberrant cases where there is a lack of useable court data to inform AI development.