Computer judge predicts court verdicts

An AI “judge” has correctly predicted verdicts of the European Court of Human Rights with 79% accuracy.

Computer scientists devised an artificially intelligent programme that was able to weigh up legal evidence and moral questions of right and wrong.

The algorithm scoured English language data sets for 584 cases relating to torture and degrading treatment, fair trials and privacy. In each case, the programme analysed the information and arrived at its own judicial decision.

In 79% of cases, the AI verdict matched the one delivered by the court.

Lead researcher Dr Nikolaos Aletras, from University College London, said: “We don’t see AI replacing judges or lawyers, but we think they’d find it useful for rapidly identifying patterns in cases that lead to certain outcomes.

“It could also be a valuable tool for highlighting which cases are most likely to be violations of the European Convention on Human Rights.”

An equal number of “violation” and “non-violation” cases were chosen for the study.