Recently, one of the most prominent controversies in socio-legal jurisprudence is about AI and courts. I hypothesize that the reliance/over-reliance on AI in court proceedings is a threat to courts, justice, judicial integrity, society, and democracy. Thus, my over three years research on AI and the Courts, attempts to decipher AI’s place in judicial proceedings and the dual impacts on democratic development. Through anonymous questionnaires to female judges in an international conference in City University of New York in 2023 and to all judges in the International Association of Court Administrators Conference in Singapore in 2024, I collected and collated data, which partly confirmed my hypothesis that AI may have more harmful effects on judicial proceedings in the long term if judges are not intentional/cautious in performing their roles. So, as I prepare for the next phase of this research trail with a tweaked questionnaire (outcome from observations), I aim to verify the claims from previous findings, which depicts the dilemmatic implications of AI in courts. I argue that although AI is valuable to speedy trials, research and judicial administration, it could create problems, especially in criminal proceedings. Therefore, while discussing my findings from both the New York and Singapore conferences, I will analyze the implications of AI on the court’s role in democracy with the present socio-legal reality in society–weighing the pros and cons of AI in courts. I conclude with proposing my unique socio-judicialism theory as an equilibrium in solving the dilemma of implementing AI in courts.

Authors:
Ari Niki-Tobi, Calvin University, United States

About the Presenter(s)
Dr. Ari Niki-Tobi is a scholar, researcher and philosopher. She developed the Socio-Judicialism concept, and a socio-judicial pedagogy that supports student learning for future-readiness. She is student-focused and has published widely.

Connect on Linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ari-niki-tobi-atsjc/

Connect on ResearchGate
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ari-Niki-Tobi

Additional website of interest
https://atsjconsulting.com/

See this presentation on the full schedule – Saturday Schedule

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