Extract from Claudia Salomon’s article “The New Frontier: AI in Arbitral Decision Making”
It’s a truism that arbitration is only as good as the arbitrator. But what if the arbitrator is artificial intelligence (AI)? AI and other cutting-edge technologies such as the AI-powered language model ChatGPT are reshaping every aspect of our lives—and arbitration is no exception.
AI has the potential to significantly reduce the time and costs of resolving a dispute. It is already being used to significantly enhance legal productivity: to help draft contracts, review and identify relevant documents in the discovery process, and conduct legal research.
Some jurisdictions have begun to adopt AI tools for various stages of the criminal justice process, however, that enter the realm of decision-making, including pre-trial risk assessments, bail, sentencing, and parole. Online shopping and auction website eBay and the financial transaction system PayPal go further in their use of decisional AI: they resolve millions of disputes every year through algorithm-driven online dispute resolution (ODR). The ODR algorithms leverage historical data to analyze the problem, based on similar cases, and suggest mutually beneficial outcomes. These ODR systems also continue to “learn” and improve their recommendations through user feedback.
