Extract from Amy Guthrie’s article “Brazil’s Overwhelmed Judiciary, Desperate for Help, Turns to Artificial Intelligence”
The Brazilian justice system is rolling out a series of artificial intelligence tools to help chip away at a dauntingly large caseload.
There are close to 80 million cases awaiting final decisions in Brazil, which likely constitutes the biggest court backlog in the world.
“It’s a desperate situation, actually. And we don’t want to restrict what might come to the judiciary,” said Isabela Ferrari, a federal judge in Rio de Janeiro who has been closely tracking technology developments that aim to speed legal resolutions.
Ferrari is a board member of the Future Society, a think tank whose mission is to advance the responsible adoption of AI and other emerging technologies. There are more than 64 AI initiatives within the Brazilian judiciary to date, she said.
AI is being used to find pending lawsuits, check whether a matter has already been resolved by the country’s high court, and help judges quickly identify bank accounts to freeze, for example.
