Artificial intelligence can solve countless problems with a precision beyond the reach of humans, but it is in the “gray zones”, in which our minds are trained in an evolutionary process of millions of years, where people find certainties that machine cannot see. It is explained by the president of the Supreme Court of the United States, John Roberts, who has just published his annual report and has dedicated it, of course, to the emergence of artificial intelligence in the justice system of his country.
Roberts describes the impact of technology on the United States justice system with both hope and warning. On the dark side, he explains that “Law professors report with amazement and anguish that AI can apparently get A’s in law school subjects and even pass the bar exam.” On the positive side, “legal research will soon be unimaginable without it.”
The use of AI will exponentially increase access to key information but, Roberts warns, “it runs the risk of invading privacy interests and dehumanizing the law,” which is why he calls for using it “with caution and humility.” He remembers that this year there were lawyers who turned to ChatGPT to present allegations and that the AI ??did so with citations to previous cases that were non-existent.
Replacing a judge with AI in a tennis tournament, in which the machine detects with millimetric precision whether a ball touches the line or not, is not the same as decisions in court, which for Roberts “often involve gray areas that continue to require the application of human judgment.” “Judges, for example, measure the sincerity of the accused’s speech at the sentencing. Nuance is important: A shaky hand, a shaky voice, a change in inflection, a drop of sweat, a moment of hesitation, a fleeting break in eye contact can change a lot of things.” Perhaps all of this can be measured with figures such as tear duct humidity, blood pressure, temperature and heart rate, but we humans see it with a glance: it is called emotion.