Campaign group JUSTICE recently published a report addressing the use of AI across the justice system, where they believe the proposed duty should obligate AI users to “pause, rethink, redesign or even stop development or deployment if significant risks to the rule of law or human rights are identified.”
The report titled, AI in our Justice System, set out to propose a “framework to achieve [a trustworthy justice system] in the context of innovating with AI”, doing so through two main requirements:
According to research, AI has the potential of being “of great service to the strengthening of our justice system” if it is deployed well.
Conversely, the ground-breaking technology could also “lack transparency, embed or exacerbate societal biases, and can produce inaccurate outputs which are nevertheless convincing to the people around it”.
Other possible benefits were uncovered by the research, including AI’s role in aiding the judicial system for legal research and drafting, investigating sexual abuse cases with online images, identifying bias in written pieces and improving engagement in law-making and developing policies.
Significant gaps in data collected by the justice system were pointed out as a major area of concern, as incomplete data can lead to unintentional replication or increased bias.
The report continued on further possible risks, stating:
“Many AI models – including those used for risk assessments, sentencing recommendations, or fraud detection – rely on probabilistic methods.
“Instead of offering guaranteed correctness, they provide predictions with varying degrees of confidence, which means there is always a margin of error.”
Fabricated or misleading content, labelled as “hallucinations”, and the worry that many AI models operate as “black boxes” and therefore lack transparency rounded off concerns raised.
Report co-author and chair of JUSTICE’s AI programme, Sophia Adams Bhatti, stated:
“Given the desperate need to improve the lives of ordinary people and strengthen public services, AI has the potential to drive hugely positive outcomes.
“Equally, human rights and the rule of law drive prosperity, enhance social cohesion, and strengthen democracy. We have set out a framework which will allow for the positive potential of both to be aligned.”
