laitimes

What role should AI play in judicial adjudication? The SPC issued a clear document!

author:Bright Net

Recently, the large language model represented by ChatGPT has attracted widespread attention and rapid iteration.

As an important driving force leading a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, artificial intelligence is profoundly changing the way people produce, live and learn. As the application of this new technology in the field of social governance becomes more widespread, its application in the judicial field has become more common, and the discussion of new opportunities and challenges has been born.

AI is not a substitute for judges

On January 30 of this year, a Colombian judge used ChatGPT to issue a court ruling on access to medical care for people with autism without paying for treatment. Some people called the case "the first AI trial in the world".

On March 15, GPT-4 was launched, as a new generation of artificial intelligence products, it has the ability to pass the legal professional qualification examination.

Concerns about artificial intelligence replacing humans have revived: if this rate of development continues, will Chinese courts use artificial intelligence technology to judge cases in the future?

According to Xu Yan, a judge assistant at the Chang'an District People's Court in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, ChatGPT cannot yet become a "real judge" in terms of the current status and inherent limitations of artificial intelligence technology and the complexity of legal trials. The voice of ordinary people is that the last line of defense for human fairness and justice should be guarded by emotional humans, not by a cold "button". AI cannot and should not replace judges.

Xu Yan believes that regarding the role of artificial intelligence in judicial trials, it is clearly stated in the above-mentioned Colombian court judgment: "The purpose of adding the generative text of these artificial intelligence applications to the judgment is by no means to replace the judge's ruling, what we really pursue is to reduce the time to draft the judgment after confirming the information provided by the artificial intelligence." ”

He Fan, head of the Office of the Supreme People's Court's Leading Group for Judicial Reform and deputy director of the International Cooperation Bureau, said: "In Chinese courts, AI can assist judges in handling cases, but under no circumstances can it replace judges' judgments. ”

"In the past, there were indeed some concerns in the society, thinking that with such a heavy burden on courts handling cases and such rapid technological development, there will be 'machine judges' in the future, and whether 'machine judgments' will hinder the realization of fairness and justice." He Fan pointed out that in December last year, the SPC issued the Opinions on Regulating and Strengthening the Judicial Application of AI, which pioneered five basic principles for the judicial application of artificial intelligence, one of which is the "principle of auxiliary trial".

The "Opinions on Regulating and Strengthening the Judicial Application of Artificial Intelligence" makes it clear that adhere to the auxiliary positioning of trial work and the user's independent decision-making power, no matter what level of technological development, artificial intelligence must not replace judges' judgments, and artificial intelligence-assisted results can only be used as a reference for trial work or trial supervision and management, ensuring that judicial decisions are always made by adjudicators, adjudication powers are always exercised by adjudication organizations, and judicial responsibility is ultimately borne by adjudicators. All types of users have the right to choose whether to use the assistance provided by judicial artificial intelligence, and have the right to withdraw from interaction with artificial intelligence products and services at any time.

"To sum it up in one sentence, 'judicial decisions are always made by the adjudicators, the adjudication authority is always exercised by the adjudication organization, and the judicial responsibility is ultimately borne by the adjudicators'. In other words, whether it is a 'difficult disease' or a simple case, it should be the human judge who ultimately decides how many years to sentence and how much to lose. He Fan said.

As an auxiliary rather than a substitute tool

"Online self-help case filing" and "cross-domain case filing"... Nowadays, modern technologies such as big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and blockchain are widely used in litigation services, trial execution, judicial management and other fields, and the network judicial model with Chinese characteristics has reduced the work burden of all kinds of judicial personnel while improving judicial efficiency.

In the complicated judicial trial process, how to correctly position artificial intelligence, give play to its advantages, and avoid its drawbacks?

He Fan pointed out that at present, artificial intelligence technology has a wide range of applications in the judicial field, including transactional auxiliary work such as information backfilling, intelligent cataloging, legal article push, document error correction, etc., but also can provide judges with substantive help such as similar case push, evidence screening, risk estimation, and deviation early warning.

"However, the application of substance is still in its infancy, and whether artificial intelligence can be used to analyze and judge difficult cases and warn of major evidence flaws still requires us to do a lot of 'laying the foundation' work, and we cannot be blindly optimistic and ambitious." He Fan revealed that the SPC is currently cooperating with Tsinghua University and other universities and scientific research institutions, relying on massive judicial big data resources, to promote the establishment of large-scale pre-training language models oriented to the judicial context, improve the ability of machines to understand, learn legal knowledge, judgment documents, and judicial logic, and provide support for the long-term development of judicial artificial intelligence.

Xu Yan believes that the basic function of law is to determine points and stop disputes, but fixed points are only means, and stopping disputes is the goal. The operation of the law is by no means self-contained, but deeply influenced by social values. Judicial activities pay attention to the communication between them and society, pay attention to the convergence and unity of reason, reason, and law, and require the integration of socialist core values into trial practice. In mainland China, judges are usually encouraged to resolve conflicts between the parties by guiding the parties to settle their case, so as to achieve the social harmony effect brought about by "mediation and closing the case". However, artificial intelligence itself does not have feelings, and ChatGPT judges cannot resonate with human emotions, cannot "empathize", and cannot channel the parties emotionally and properly resolve conflicts.

"Judicial trial is an activity that combines factual determination and value judgment, in order to promote its strengths and avoid its weaknesses, ChatGPT can be placed in the role of a fact-finder and try not to let it make value judgments." This determines that artificial intelligence must not be allowed to make direct decisions on judicial decisions, and at the same time avoid its substantive interference in judges' handling of cases. Xu Yan said, "The function of artificial intelligence as an auxiliary rather than an alternative judicial practice tool should be promoted, and it should be positioned as a 'judge assistant'." ”

Outline the future picture of smart court construction

"In recent years, the mainland court system has been actively embracing digital transformation and actively promoting the in-depth integration of justice and technology through a series of measures." Wu Hongqi, a researcher at Peking University Law School, found that on the basis of the online litigation rules, online mediation rules and online operation rules that have been launched, in 2022, the SPC once again issued two important documents to strengthen the judicial application of blockchain and artificial intelligence, face the key issues in the construction of smart courts, outline a clear development direction for the future of smart court construction, and promote the construction of smart rule of law to a higher level.

"These two documents put forward a clear direction for the next development of smart courts, with 2025 and 2030 as the time nodes, and clarify the construction goals and provide basic guidelines for the rapidly developing blockchain and artificial intelligence judicial applications." Wu Hongqi said.

One of the goals is to basically build a relatively complete judicial artificial intelligence technology application system by 2025, provide all-round intelligent auxiliary support for justice for the people and fair justice, significantly reduce the burden of judges' transactional work, effectively ensure clean justice, improve the level of judicial management, and innovate to serve social governance.

How can the application of artificial intelligence in the judicial field protect the privacy of parties, ensure data security and the transparency of algorithms? Many questions remain unanswered.

Niu Tongxu, vice president of the Tianjin Lawyers Association, believes that technology is a tool, and the value of the tool is to replace human repetitive labor and double calculation that individual humans are not good at, and ChatGPT blurs the boundary between human behavior and artificial intelligence behavior, and there may be a risk of infringement of intellectual property rights in law, and its output needs to be further discussed.

"In the future, not only the courts, but also the entire legal community must strengthen their understanding of new fields and new formats." Niu Tongxi said.

Author|Zhang Chen, all-media reporter of Rule of Law Daily

Source: Rule of Law Daily