A computer algorithm has managed to forecast the judicial decisions of the European Court of Human Rights ( ECtHR ) with a 79 percent accuracy , reports a study print today in the journalPeerj Computer Science . Though this does n’t mean we ’re likely to see robots occur the cake any time soon , it could avail to make jurist more efficient by identify cases that are most likely to win or lose before they even get to judicature .
" We do n’t see AI [ artificial intelligence ] replacing judges or lawyers , but we think they ’d find it useful for rapidly identifying blueprint in cases that guide to certain upshot , ” explain study co - author Nikolaos Aletras in astatement .
This could be particularly utilitarian when it fall to lodging appeal against decisions made by the ECtHR , as it will give lawyers and judges a decent melodic theme of how likely these appeals are to succeed . Using this entropy , officials can make good decisions regarding whether or not to take a case to trial , all of which could save valuable clip .
To make theAI , investigator from University College London , the University of Sheffield , and the University of Pennsylvania take aim a information processing system to identify patterns in the transcript of 584 fount relating to Articles 3 , 6 , and 8 of theEuropean Convention on Human Rights . These refer to the right field to exemption from torture , a fair trial , and privacy respectively .
By searching for correlational statistics between patterns in these texts and the outcomes of trials , the machine was then able to accurately predict the decisions made by the court in just under four - fifths of case .
Interestingly , the algorithm was most honest when used to analyze a subsection of the case text call “ Circumstances ” , which contains the facts regarding the action mechanism and events environ a special case . In demarcation , the “ Law ” subsection , which deals with thelegalarguments made by both sides , was the least precise predictor of the terminal result .
The researchers therefore conclude that the judges of the ECtHR are what effectual experts call “ realist ” rather than “ formalists ” , entail they base their decisions more on real life facts than on the legal framework itself .
