What they say

“Prosecuting authorities at every level should pay attention to assessing the potential application of artificial intelligence in their work to ensure it can play a role handling cases and assisting prosecutions, investigations and supervision. The assessment of voice-identification systems should be given priority. For example, we should accelerate studies into smartphone applications with bilingual software that could help people from ethnic groups, and adopt them in a timely manner.” Cao Jianming, procurator-general of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate “Searching for laws and other labor-intensive work will soon be undertaken by AI devices, but technology cannot replace face-to-face communication. For example, when you visit a doctor you don’t just want to know what illness you have, you also want treatment and care. Bringing a lawsuit is very similar; a robot cannot defend for you like a lawyer because you and your lawyer need to communicate and your discussions will be full of emotions that cannot be replaced.” Shao Zili, nonexecutive chairman of Fangda Partners, one of China’s leading law firms “Technology and information, especially big data and artificial intelligence, can help to solve the problem of a lack of judicial officers. We can see that some basic jobs, such as those done by administrators and court clerks, will be replaced by AI devices in the near future, which will mean judicial workers will be free from basic chores, which will allow them to concentrate on cases.” Cheng Lei, an associate law professor who specializes in judicial reform at Renmin University of China