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AI making minor judicial decisions?

Could artificial intelligence (AI) soon be used to make decisions in our legal system? Last week, the Law Society of Scotland held a law and technology conference. The Master of the Rolls, The Right Hon. Sir Geoffrey Vos, gave a speech at it. He is the most senior civil judge in the legal system in England and Wales and our second most important judge after the Lord Chief Justice. He said that he believes that machines and AI could be used to make some decisions. If so, these would start off as very minor ones and, if successful, increase from there, so as use them consistently throughout our judiciary system. He believes that AI would be particularly useful in commercial and compensation disputes, where it would enable decisions to be made quickly. By way of safeguards, he considers that parties would need to know which decisions are being taken by judges and which are being taken by machines. For those taken by machines, there would always need to be a right of appeal to a human judge. More “intensely personal decisions”, such as in a welfare of a child case, are ones where he would not recommend the use of AI at all as things presently stand.

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