A judge by any other name…

https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/concern/theses/fb494g061

Automating the science and art of judging

This thesis is about the essence of judicial automation. It is an important matter because asking ourselves what we are doing when we automate judging should precede deliberations on how to do it. Key to my argument is the idea that judicial automation is both a historical event and a “theorizing” of judging. Theorizing because preliminary to the automation of something is a theoretical articulation of what this something is or of what it should be. The task to be automated – in our case, judging – must be formalized so that a machine can perform it. With this in mind, I proceed with a review of influential Western legal theories and approaches to judicial interpretation to investigate what judging has historically been theorized to be. I ground this review in a dual classification framework where “science” is distinct from “art”. These two are, I claim, archetypal frameworks for knowledge, which spectres we perceive in influential legal theories of judging. Each archetype reflects a viewpoint on mind and reality relative to one another (i.e. a metaphysical approach) that makes a scientific or artistic outlook on law and judging possible. “Judging as science” and “judging as art” is how I refer to the two outlooks. We discover each outlook highlights a dimension of judging corresponding to a correlative dimension of human “knowing”. These two dimensions of knowing, we can simplify as “cognition” and “emotion”, are in fact not so distinct according to contemporary psychology. Yet, my conclusion following a discussion about artificial intelligence and technology is that judicial automation strengthens judging as science while undermining judging as art. Judicial automation enables a rationalist and formalist approach to law, underplaying the role of “emotion” in judging. Max Weber allows us to conceive of judicial automation as relating to a larger historical transformation of law: the “rationalization of law”. What does it mean for law, its “rationality”, and its grounding in history and society that judicial automation is a rationalization? In asking this question, we get closer to the essence of judicial automation. We find that judicial automation “reveals” law as formalizable knowledge, and judging as a formalizable task. The product of this revealing is what I call “technological justice”. Informing this part of my argument is the ancient Greek notion of technê, that helps us understand why science, art and technology belong in the same conversation. At this stage, we also engage with early critical works about technology. The thesis concludes with the sketching of two “scenarios”, or ways technological justice could alter our relationship to law, which help us picture how law, society and we may change because of judicial automation. We try to assess whether there is any hope of avoiding these scenarios.

AI as an expert witness?

https://stars.library.ucf.edu/hut2024/59/

The Implications of Artificial Intelligence in the Criminal Justice System

This thesis focuses on artificial intelligence's recent implications on the criminal justice system regarding its admissibility as evidence in civil and criminal cases. One of the main concerns surrounding artificial intelligence is determining the validity of AI application; application refers to the accuracy "AI measures, classifies, or predicts what it is designed to" (Article: Artificial Intelligence as Evidence by Paul W. Grimm, Maura R. Grossman & Gordon V.Cormack.(https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1349&context=njtip). Privacy law will also be analyzed in this analysis. Is evidence recorded without the individual's consent or knowledge acceptable in determining an individual's guilt? This analysis will primarily focus on determining whether the introduced AI evidence is valid and if it can and should play a role in a civil or criminal case. Like any other system, the criminal justice system has many imperfections. The goal of this research is to neither negate nor enforce what that criminal justice system is currently doing but rather to provide evidence for growth within the system. Through the research process, many wrongful convictions due to mishaps with AI have presented themselves. Whether AI continues to grow in the criminal justice system or not is inevitable. AI as evidence will continue to grow in the system and become more than evidence one day. The Florida Bar has passed a rule allowing the integration of AI into the legal system. The rule prohibits misleading information and ensures the client must be aware that they are not communicating with an attorney but rather an AI program. As AI continues to integrate into the legal system, court officials must do it harm-free, which is the goal of this research.

New words, new thinking?

https://repo.lib.duth.gr/jspui/handle/123456789/18946

Fully autonomous weapon systems (Doctoral thesis)

Autonomous technology rapidly becomes a major fighting force in the militaries worldwide. At the same time, scientists and armed forces around the globe have set their sights on manufacturing new types of robots – fully autonomous – that are intended to be classified as a whole new type of soldier. The development and deployment of such technology seems inevitable. This prospect, however, makes lawmakers and academics fear that reality may outdistance the existing laws and the current law-making procedures, exposing thus humanity to great dangers and threats. Matters of law compliance, accountability and the use of lethal force on humans by machines become the focal point of interest with the deployment of fully autonomous weapon systems in battlefields. This thesis acknowledges that the era of AI in warfare has come and ventures into the quest of the legal framework that could possibly apply to fully autonomous weapon systems, so as they can be incorporated safely into our societies and militaries, without their existence and actions creating legal gaps. Accordingly, the possibility of granting fully autonomous weapon systems the legal status of an artificial soldier is explored, along with the possibility of regulating them on the basis of the laws on military weapons. The findings indicate that it is too early for the international community to consider attributing the status of an artificial soldier to fully autonomous weapon systems. But there seems to be room for another development in the future. At the same time, the attempt to incorporate fully autonomous weapon systems into the legal framework which regulates military weapons is also unfruitful. Their technical characteristics along with their unique feature of autonomy blocks this route. As a way out of the impasse, this thesis proposes that fully autonomous weapons systems should serve humanity as “military servants”. For the time being, it is safe to suggest that highly sophisticated military robots can serve the armies as defensive agents or contribute to military campaigns under the capacity of strategic advisors, operators, doctors etc. Currently, it is considered prohibitive to have these systems in military vanguard.