Skip to main content
Artificial justice
ANSELM ELDERGILL asks whether artificial intelligence may decide legal cases in the future, in place of human judges, and how AI could reshape the legal landscape
MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS: AI Truth Machine / LIT Law Lab, Johannes Kepler University (AT)

OUR courts are in crisis: buildings are crumbling; serious delays are endemic; legal rules are labyrinthine; very few citizens without means are eligible for legal aid; and the judiciary in dress and thought is old-fashioned and hierarchical, its often ill-judged attempts at self-reform and modernity distorted by long-entrenched class privilege.

Is artificial intelligence part of the answer to these and other pressing legal problems or part of a dystopian future?

In Samuel Butler’s 19th century novel Erewhon, the citizens of his imaginary country were concerned that evolution in humans is gradual but in mechanics rapid, concluding that machines would soon surpass and supplant them.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
(L to R) the book cover; Labour Party election poster 1945;
Books / 3 December 2024
3 December 2024
MICHAL BONCZA recommends a compact volume that charts the art of propagating ideas across the 20th century
Cairokee play Telk Qadeya (That is a Cause)
Gig review / 5 May 2024
5 May 2024
MICHAL BONCZA reviews Cairokee gig at the London Barbican
PROUD HISTORY: (L to R) Living Wage Campaign by COSATU (The
Culture / 29 April 2024
29 April 2024
Liberty Leading the People, Eugene Delacroix; Rupert Garcia,
Opinion / 15 March 2024
15 March 2024
MICHAL BONCZA rounds up a series of images designed to inspire women
Similar stories
MORE PLASTIC, LESS REAL: Tom Hanks in 2023 at the time of fi
Decoding Network TV / 31 March 2025
31 March 2025
DENNIS BROE notes what happens to content when the streaming giants incorporate AI and deregulation into their economic models
A woman's hand pressing a key of a laptop keyboard
Britain / 7 February 2025
7 February 2025
INNOVATION/REVOLUTION? 28/09/1971. Salvador Allende, togethe
Opinion / 21 January 2025
21 January 2025
Software engineer SCOTT ALSWORTH explains to his mother
RAISING AWARENESS: PauseAI is an international activist grou
Books / 14 June 2024
14 June 2024
Given the threat that AI poses to workers, TONY BURKE recommends a pamphlet that sets out the way forward