Extract from Kaveh Waddell’s article “Can Judging Be Automated?”
A court hands down an opinion: thoughtfully reasoned, forcefully argued, eminently fair. It’s lauded widely — until it comes out that the author wasn’t a renowned judge but rather an advanced artificial intelligence system.
The big question: Should the opinion be rejected because of its source, even if it’s indistinguishable from — or better than — what a human would have produced?
Even though today’s AI is woefully unprepared for the job, legal scholars are already debating whether computers should someday be entrusted with enormous legal decisions.
