RE: The Future: An Efficient Justice System Run By Artificial Intelligence
You've got some really good ideas here. My Master's is in Criminal Justice, although I focused on domestic security issues.
I especially like the idea about videotaping witnesses outside the courtroom; we have done this to protect child witnesses in the past, and I think it works. Just make sure there is a judge and the defendant's lawyer in the process as well as an advocate for the witness. We allow the defendant to confront the witness, but it should be understood that a lawyer is the proper agent for this process.
You have obviously put a great deal of thought into your analysis, but here are some things to consider as well.
Studies have shown that juries and judges (human) have the same statistical rates of error in assigning verdicts, I don't have the sources to verify that, but that was something I remember as having been surprised about in my study.
One reason that we use judges instead of juries is that they make value decisions, not data decisions...should we be merciful? or does a guilty defendant deserve to to be punished to the full extant of the law. While some of these factors can be coded into a judging database, I'm not sure that all can.
Moving on, using analytic databases to make decisions can be problematic. Stock market runs are often triggered by computers making sale decisions set on preset standards that are not valid for the circumstances at the time of the run, leading to market crashes.
However, you are dead on on noting that politics, human bias, and human ignorance negatively affects the criminal justice system.
Perhaps an AI or analytic system could be of use in confirm a human judge or jury's decision. Just be aware that regardless of whether a judicial decision is accurate or not, politics and bias can still affect the public's acceptance of the decision, and I suspect that there is a bias against having a "computer" making human decisions.
In any case, good work, and I look forward to hearing more from you!
This is very interesting to read, im really surprised as well that judges would make the same amount of mistakes as jurors, possibly because the mistakes are caused by perception bias ( for example perceiving someone as "looking like a rapist" or "looking like a theif") that exists in both judges and juries. I agree with most of the other points you make in regards to today's AI, but AI in the next 100-200 years will be unrecognizable from anything we could imagine. It wouldnt a computer taking orders, it would be more like an incredibly intelligent and efficient life being. I guess only time will tell, and most likely more time than you or I have left on this earth, but just thinking about it makes me wonder about what else can be possibly changed in the future. I appreciate the response and if ever write anything similarly about the justice system or criminal justice, let me know!
I'll do that. I have been lazy in my writing so far lol.
I think that you're right in that juries and judges make the same mistakes due to the same basic biases. As humans, we are more emotional and/or heuristic in our decision-making than we like to believe. Huemer goes into this in detail here:
http://www.owl232.net/irrationality.htm
and one point in Huemer's argument is that people that are more intelligent and educated often make LESS rational decisions than they believe they do. (cue Homer Simpson burning down his own house and singing I AM SO SMART, I AM SO SMART)
The good thing about the future is that we can always work towards making it better for ourselves via technology and self-improvement!