Despite the courts’ enthusiastic adoption of AI, a prominent judge assured expert witnesses that the technology would not replace them.
At the Expert Witness Institute conference on Friday, Senior President of Tribunals Sir Keith Lindblom declared that we should not fear the introduction of artificial support, but rather embrace the “immense opportunities” it brings, Law Gazette reported.
According to Lindblom, courts and tribunals would employ AI daily. The experts who provided testimony would need to transform into monitors and quality control officers for the results.
He stated, “I would not accept the prospect of our AI overlords reducing the role of expert witnesses to mere interpretation of their findings.” ‘But it would be wrong to think that AI will have only a marginal impact on the role of expert witnesses.’
Before his lecture, Lindblom claimed to have questioned ChatGPT about whether AI might eventually supplant specialists. It should come as no surprise, he said, that the system thought it could handle a large portion of the job normally performed by specialists, attorneys, and judges.
Experts in the future would “undoubtedly” rely on artificial technology to prepare their evidence, according to Lindblom, despite claims that judges are appalled by litigants utilizing AI to generate fictitious case references. Closed chatbots offer enhanced protection to mitigate potential risks, yet they still require caution when inputting private information into the system.
According to the president, AI will raise the standard and consistency of expert reports, especially when they include scientific or technological evidence.
When applied properly, he proposed, AI might determine which cases were appropriate for online dispute resolution and make precise predictions about the results, allowing parties to settle out of court.
‘It does not mean expert witnesses are going to be redundant,’ he added. In order to ensure justice, courts and tribunals will rely on experts who possess a solid understanding of the new technology.
‘It is the accountability and intelligent rigor of expert witnesses in the assistance they give that make them indispensable to the administration of justice.’
At a conference earlier this year, the master of the rolls, Sir Geoffrey Vos, stated that “the simple fact is that we would not be properly serving either the interests of justice or access to justice if we did not embrace the use of new technologies for the benefit of those we serve.” Lindblom’s embrace of AI was similar to Vos’s.
Vos advised “extreme caution” when using generative AI for legal advice and court filings, but noted that clients in litigation would want access to the data and know what an AI believed to be their chances of success.
