“Black Box Justice”: Robot Judges and AI-based Judgment Processes in China’s Court System

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been widely adopted in China’s court system to improve work efficiency to better serve the public. This paper evaluates the three stages of how AI is transforming China’s court system: from being a simple auxiliary tool, performing basic tasks through reconciliation of case and trial information; to assisting judges in decision-making by providing recommendations via the AI’s ability to learn from past precedent and standardized evidence review; and finally, to developing into autonomous agents able to take charge of the court and make judgments as robot judges. However, public skepticism around the credibility of the so-called “black box” of AI algorithms in ensuring fair judgment and achieving justice is escalating, with the concern that efficiency does not guarantee effectiveness or ensure public interest. This paper aims to analyze “black box” issues in each stage and demonstrates why China’s effort to pursue AI as an innovative technical practice to realize judicial fairness should take complex social and ethical contexts into consideration. In order to serve for public good in China’s court system, the new technology must ensure its representation of human values and include public participation.