2023 was the year of the explosion of AI. As a result, there is a large amount of analysis, reports about AI with varied perspectives, assessments, predictions and also criticisms. Here are some reports about AI and its practical uses, which are found interesting to read in the first week of 2024, accompanied by Galette des Rois and tea.
Image by Freepik
Australasian Institute of Judicial Administration’s report
First, “AI Decision-Making and the Courts”, a joint research of the Australasian Institute of Judicial Administration and UNSW Faculty of Law and Justice. Introduced as a guide for judges, tribunal members and court administrators on AI, the researchers revised the 2023 report and released the 2024 version last month. It discussed the deployments and main values of AI tools, techniques for courts, decision-makers, such as:
- TAR (‘Technology Assisted Review’), using Machine Learning to assess and categorise large quantities of electronic documents. This tool requires the parties’ understanding of its correctness level. The courts in the U.S., Ireland, England and Wales, Australia have accepted its use.
- ODR (‘Online Dispute Resolution’), including ‘online alternative dispute resolution’ and ‘online court’. The British Columbia’s Civil Resolution Tribunal (CRT) of Canada has experimented with the process for small claims under $5 000, motor vehicle accident and injury claims under $50 000 since 2012.
- ‘Prediction of Litigation Outcomes’ uses Machine Learning to anticipate the results based on the case information, decisions text. The use of the tool raises the question about its impact on the actual delivery of justice.
- COMPAS – an iniquitous crime prediction and risk assessment tool accepted by many U.S. jurisdictions. It provides data-driven interference which causes serious concerns about its accuracy, function.
- ‘Automated Decision-Support’ and ‘Automated Decision-Making’ tools. They are the most used, experimented AI-based systems by the courts in over the world, e.g. Bail Assistant program in Australia, EXPERTIUS system in Mexico, online court in the U.K., several AI programs in Brazil, SUPACE (‘Supreme Court Portal for Assistance in Courts Efficiency’) in India, virtual enforcement courts in Saudi Arabia, automated adjudication of small contract disputes in Estonia and ‘smart court’ in China.
- ‘Automated e-filing’ programs exploit rules-based systems or Machine Learning to facilitate the filing, and cut down the paper documents. Following e-filing, automated triage and allocation use patterns in existing the court’s databases to categorise or manage the cases.
- The courts may employ Machine Learning application, ‘Natural Language Processing’ to analyse text, recognise voice, and produce transcription.
- ‘AI-Supported Legal Research’ services, for instance, Ross Intelligence, LexisNexis, AustLII, assist users to seek responses to legal issues by using natural language processing.
- RaC (‘Rules as Code’) pilot projects (in France, New Zealand, New South Wales) published computer code on GitHub, including rules written in a machine-consumable format. They allow the public to question the rules, their application, and calculation.
In the 2023 End-Year Report on the Federal Judiciary, the U.S. Chief Justice, John G. Roberts, Jr. predicted the use of AI in judicial works. He also affirmed the application of some of these tools, techniques.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/publicinfo/year-end/2023year-endreport.pdf
The U.N. AI Advisory Body ‘Interim Report “Governing AI for Humanity”
Second, led by the reputable experts, the U.N.’s AI Advisory Body released the ‘Interim Report “Governing AI for Humanity” in December 2023’. It analysed and put forward recommendations for international governance of AI. On the one hand, they proved the potential that AI can help address climate change and its other opportunities in different aspects. On the other hand, they also pointed out the risks from the perspective of current and probable susceptibility of human, society, economy, eco-systems, values and norms. They recommended that:
- AI should be governed inclusively, by and for the benefit of all
- AI must be governed in the public interest
- AI governance should be built in step with data governance and the promotion of data commons
- AI governance must be universal, networked and rooted in adaptive multi-stakeholder collaboration
- AI governance should be anchored in the UN Charter, International Human Rights Law, and other agreed international commitments such as the Sustainable Development Goals
https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/ai_advisory_body_interim_report.pdf
Deloitte’s TMT predictions 2024
Last but not least, Deloitte forecasted that the EU legislators shall probably balance out the regulatory compliance and facilitation of generative AI development. Since the Environmental, Sustainability, and Governance (ESG) currently has caught the governmental bodies’ attention it predicted the high request of normalised software solutions systemising the ESG tracking and reporting.
To quickly get the news, follow our LinkedIn Page and to have further discussion – follow me on Linkedin. Cheers!