Islamabad High Court (IHC) judge Justice Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan has written a letter to Chief Justice Sarfraz Dogar, expressing serious reservations over the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in judicial processes, warning against the concept of “robotic justice”.Justice Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan also shared a copy of his letter with all IHC judges.

The letter references discussions held during a recent full court meeting chaired by Chief Justice Dogar regarding the potential role of computers or robots in court proceedings.In the letter, Justice Ejaz wrote that the use of AI in the judiciary is an intense global debate, adding that computers or robots can neither possess moral reasoning nor exercise independent judgement.

He stressed that any decisions made by AI systems would always be subject to the programming and data fed into them, and therefore, “robots or computer judges will merely reflect their programmers’ biases and limitations.”The judge noted that opponents of AI in courts argue that robotic systems are inherently programmable, meaning that any robotic judge would always remain under the control of its coding, not independent reasoning.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan (INP)