Artificial Intelligence not a substitute for judge, lawyer but can deal with traffic violation, cheque bounce cases: Justice Hima Kohli

Artificial Intelligence (AI) cannot be a substitute for a trained judicial mind, Supreme Court judge Justice Hima Kohli said on Saturday. .Neither can AI cannot substitute the wisdom and experience of a judge nor can it replace the human element required of a lawyer to conduct a case, she said."AI cannot be a substitute for a trained judicial mind and it can't replace the human element that is required from a lawyer to conduct a case or give an opinion.... It is also not a substitute for the wisdom and real-life experience of a judge in the decision making process," she said.AI could, however, be employed to deal with cases like traffic violations, credit card recoveries and cheque bounce matters, the judge opined."Matters with small stake such as traffic violations, credit card recoveries, and cheque boune cases constitute a significant portion of the workload of our district courts. Efficient disposal of such cases is essential for efficient functioning of the legal system. Use of Artificial Intelligence in these cases can help reduce the backlog and improve the speed of disposal," she said.Justice Kohli was delivering the keynote address at the 1st anniversary of “i-Amicus”, a knowledge sharing platform created for the legal team of ICICI Bank..Justice Kohli stated that Artificial Intelligence is "here to stay" and its implementation can help reduce significant workload of the district judiciary..However, she cautioned that AI also raises concerns about "fairness, bias and protection of civil liberties.".Flagging the issue of privacy, Justice Kohli stated that use of AI in the judicial system involves processing large amount of personal data including sensitive information about litigants. "There is a risk that this data could be misused or shared without consent, which could have serious consequences for privacy and civil liberties," said Justice Kohli. .Hence, AI needs to be implemented with "human oversight", she underscored.