Artificial intelligence not to be used in Indian courts: CJI

Indian courts will not be seeing the usage of artificial intelligence in the decision-making process any time soon, the Chief Justice of India (CJI) SA Bobde has clarified. The CJI made this clarification after the former chief justice of India RM Lodha expressed concern about the use of artificial intelligence at a programme in Nagpur.

Justice Lodha in his speech had said that although the idea of using artificial intelligence was good and may help significantly in the management of cases in courts and discharge of judicial functions, like other technological innovations such use may have potentially negative implications.

He had also requested to the CJI that all pros and cons must be carefully weighed before artificial intelligence is used in judicial decision-making, according to a DD News report. Nevertheless, Justice Bobde clearly said that there is no move to substitute the judicial decision-making process of the human mind.

Artificial intelligence is reportedly being introduced in some countries abroad in predicting the outcome of court cases about human rights violations. According to a report in NewScientist, from the year 2020 robot judges are going to be introduced in small claims courts in Estonia to moderate disputes of less than 7,000 Euros. Furthermore, in the US, algorithms are being used in sentencing decisions, and lawyers also use artificial intelligence to analyse texts to answer legal questions and identify relevant past court case decisions.

Reports have also suggested that the usage of machine learning and artificial intelligence in courts can make the decision-making process more accurate, less time consuming as well as potentially cheaper. However, the same can be done only after enough data has been accumulated for the AI software to play an active role in courts.