Moving from Dot Courts to Bot Courts: The (Artificially) Intelligent Solution?
Moving from Dot Courts to Bot Courts: The (Artificially) Intelligent Solution?
At the crux of jurisprudence lies a good judge. The maxim, ‘Boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem elucidates that a good judge should amplify jurisdiction to provide remedial judgment. It evidences that in a remedy for a legal wrong, the answer often lies beyond the binary.
Tracing the journey of law from Salomon, distinguishing liability from individual and incorporated entity to Prest Vs. Petrodel, latching liability on an individual by piercing the corporate veil in family law evidences the evolution of justice dispensation.
Today, the future of law is pitted against a new participant, Artificial Intelligence (AI). Dependency and hope foisted on this new technology, which is undeniably man-made and not God sent, is set to unleash an era of mass unemployment and displacement albeit with a probable positive outcome.
In 1996, email exchanges were predicted to encompass the legal industry. Today, it seems unsurprising that the prediction was ever considered an impossibility. Decades later, the concept of outcome thinking which utilizes AI to resolve disputes without the traditional court system is predicted to be a future revolution. In fact, the world had to align with virtual courts, often called, dot-com courts, due to COVID-19, which assisted in backlog clearance and access to justice.
Presently, AI is implemented to a limited extent in law offices for case management, e-discovery, legal research, document management, contractual document generation and predictive analysis of disputes. Independent litigation funding organizations depending on AI’s predictive analysis which enables them to take an informed decision before funding, by far, would be the most beneficial implementation of AI in an otherwise uncertain future of AI-based Law.
However, AI-assisted Law is closer than it seems. A time may come in future when governments mandate the implementation of A.I. for preliminary access to courts and evaluation of cases ensuring litigants have an opportunity to take informed decisions. In future, courthouses could adopt AI for filtering urgent cases for early hearings and Governments could penalize lawyers for not implementing AI mechanisms to facilitate clients.
Within the legal industry, hiring patterns may change due to implementation of AI-assisted drafting, communication and research resulting in displacement of young lawyers. Despite all, the paramountcy of a human ability to identify and apply empathy, presence of mind and adaptability to reconcile arguments with a varying and original interpretation of the law cannot be denied. The human ability to curate judgments with intelligence and much-needed emotional quotient; an aspect that AI could never acquaint with.
Countries are still incorporating hybrid digitization pursuant to COVID-19 rendering them stagnant for some time, thus, a future where disputes are resolved through AI mechanisms seems distant. The fact that most jurisdictions have taken a firm stance against granting solely AI-generated works protection under prevailing IP laws itself narrates the industry’s hesitation to evolve exponentially so soon. Jurisdictions like the USA, Europe and India have even rejected recognition of joint authorship with AI. UK is the only jurisdiction that recognizes AI as a potential author. The future where the legal industry would be overpowered by AI is bleak since AI is yet to be recognized as a valid contributor to society.
Legislation or governance is another potential aspect where A.I. may be a vital participant. The plausibility of AI-based legislation would deprive the adjudicators of interpreting legislative intent, a source of law, due to the absence of the proverbial legislative debate. This would disseminate the courts with much valuable jurisprudence to dispense justice. Human-drafted legislation will be more mindful of the ground practicalities than AI, which would function purely on extraordinary ideals that are generally never present in a situation. An illustration is the insertion of Article 300A of the Constitution of India, which mandates the eviction of a person from a property de hors any title to follow the legal procedure established. AI would either accept or reject the title pronouncing eviction without trial. The ability to accept and appreciate evidence are distinct functions where one needs intelligence and the other wisdom.
Online Dispute Resolution may be praised for e-commerce or internet-based services disputes which are resolved by AI. One must be cautious that what differs is the dispensation of justice, while AI-based resolution only settles the dispute commercially; traditional law resolves the dispute on merits. The former is providing fish and the latter is akin to teaching fishing.