Ride the Lightning

China’s AI Attorney Prosecutes with 97% Accuracy

January 5, 2022

The New York Post reported on December 27 that scientists in China claim they have programmed artificial intelligence to identify crimes and press charges with 97% accuracy.

The South China Morning Post said that researchers have developed a tool that can assess cases and suggest criminal sentences based on a verbal description, based on a reported 1,000 “traits” sourced from some 17,000 real-life cases from 2015 to 2020.

The lex ex machina has been tested by China’s largest district prosecution office, the Shanghai Pudong People’s Procuratorate, and proved especially knowledgeable in China’s most common criminal acts -gambling, reckless driving, theft and fraud. The hope is that it will be able soon to recognize more complex cases.

“The system can replace prosecutors in the decision-making process to a certain extent,” said Professor Shi Yong, who led the study, in a statement published by the Management Review journal.

There has been a lot of criticism of the use of AI in law enforcement, that criticism coming from political activists and engineers who both argue that the existing technology isn’t always nuanced enough to do justice — a field that humans also have yet to master. Multiple studies have demonstrated AI’s failure to detect hate speech online, or preference for white faces on the screen.

The information about this “AI Prosecutor” is, to date, somewhat limited. I’ll look forward to learning more about it. I hope it isn’t another law enforcement “black box” tool.

Sharon D. Nelson, Esq., President, Sensei Enterprises, Inc.
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