Can AI Help Judges Make Better Decisions ?

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Should AI be used to improve decision-making in the courts? This is the question that researchers at the prestigious Harvard University asked themselves in a new study.

Surprising results

In fact, this technology is already used by judges to make certain decisions. The scientists therefore wanted to see more clearly by comparing a judge's bail choices with the recommendations generated by an AI. The impact of these tools on human decision-making was also examined.

The authors focused on hearings conducted by a single judge in Wisconsin over 30 months from 2017 to 2019. According to the Harvard Gazette, the results are surprising to say the least, since AI was less effective than the judge in predicting repeat offenses.

Similarly, it appeared that there was relatively little difference between decision-making assisted by AI and that where the judge officiated without using this technology. Moreover, the latter refused the tool's recommendations in 30% of cases.

Jim Greiner, professor of public law at Harvard Law School and co-author of this research, comments:

This surprised me. Given the evidence we’ve cited, namely that algorithms can sometimes outperform human decisions, it appears that this algorithm was tuned to be too harsh. It predicted that people who were arrested would misbehave, that they would do it too often, and therefore recommended measures that were too harsh.

AI will not replace the human judge

This work does not, however, invalidate previous research in this area. According to scientists, it is indeed possible to recalibrate the algorithm to make it more accurate. A much easier approach than correcting human biases that can lead us to make bad decisions.

One of the other advantages of algorithms in legal matters according to researchers is that it is possible to make them transparent. By opening access to the source codes, we can better understand what leads to a decision in one direction or another.

The debate is in any case not at all settled, and we know very well that these systems remain highly criticized. In any case, there is absolutely no question of delegating judicial decisions to machines, and the final decision remains that of a human being.

As a reminder, this is not the first time that we have spoken to you about the use of AI in a court. A startup has thus tried to deploy this technology in place of a lawyer as we told you about here.

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