One very strong argument against this happening is that, for it to happen, governments would have to try to make trials faster and fairer.

@BrunoParga I would think having AI Jurors and Judges would be one way to make trials faster (and arguably fairer)

@Odoacre yes, but what I meant is that governments do not want that.

@BrunoParga why not ?

@Odoacre I see very little being done in governments anywhere that comes from a place of "this idea would not only sound good but also achieve its stated goals". I just don't see government working that way. There are such obvious improvements that could be done to the world and they don't happen.

@BrunoParga I'm not sure what to say here. It's obvious to me that mostly everyone would benefit from trials being faster. I don't think it's a controversial idea anywhere.

@Odoacre

1 - human judges would not benefit from faster trials, if that is achieved by AI;

2 - people who strongly believe in "jury of their peers" won't consider they benefit even if they do;

3 - even apart from these objections, the point where I think you are wrong is in assuming that just because something would benefit mostly everyone, then it would be done. Open borders would double world GDP, with more of that growth going to poorer nations. It is not only something that "benefits mostly everyone"; it is something that strongly does so. Yet...

In sum, my argument here is not about AI trials themselves; it is about government.

@BrunoParga I do happen to believe borders should be open, but I get your point. I still think that the two cases are pretty different. In the case of open borders they clearly disadvantage the incumbents, the people that are already "in" and would need to push for the change. People that are outside the border want in, but they don't matter politically so no one listens to them.

Faster trials inconveniences no one (I don't know why you think your point 1, what do judges gain by being backlogged ?), and as per your point 2, I would expect plaintiffs to always be able to appeal to a higher "human" court.

The reasons trials are slow are:

1) there are limits in human resources (lack of judges and staff)

2) the process of running a trial is complicated and has many steps (becasue it needs to be fair and shown to be fair).

3) the scheduling aspect is hard which means trials are backlogged and take ages to start (once a trial starts, they are relatively quick, at least in some countries)

@Odoacre I've asked a colleague who was involved in a multi-year trial why they last so long. His answer was trivially that "don't you want your lawyers to be maximally prepared?". When I pointed out that this also gives time for the opposition, he considered that irrelevant.

Perhaps because you never know your opposition's actual investment rate, and that you can guarantee at least "likely" equality by making the preparation time VERY long, while if you rush it, and it turns out your resources to prepare were actually lower, you would be hurting yourself?

Needless to say, lawyers have a natural direction to push here. And so it looks like the net result is for both sides to request the longest available gaps.

@Odoacre

In the case of open borders they clearly disadvantage the incumbents

Certainly not all of them, likely not even a majority if certain policies that ought to be repealed anyway for other reasons are repealed (e.g. construction bans).

people that are outside the border want in, but they don't matter politically so no one listens to them.

People who benefit from the judicial system being slow, complicated, impossible to access without paying them (judges, lawyers) have a much stronger incentive to lobby against AI judges than the ordinary person has an incentive to lobby for them; so a similar, albeit weaker, version of your argument also holds.

(I don't know why you think your point 1, what do judges gain by being backlogged ?)

Their livelihoods – they know that if AI is used, a very large fraction of them, possibly 100%, become obsolete.

I would expect plaintiffs to always be able to appeal to a higher "human" court.

If you grant that point to the people that oppose the very idea of AI judgements, they'll use that to oppose them in lower courts as well.

1) there are limits in human resources (lack of judges and staff)

"Hire more judges", say the judicial Luddites. "Don't you want our judicial system to be properly funded?"

2) the process of running a trial is complicated and has many steps (becasue it needs to be fair and shown to be fair).

"All the more reason not to trust the machines! Don't you know that back in 2019 I saw an AI that thought a Persian cat was a Siamese??? We can't trust machines to get it right!" (Never mind that humans get it wrong more often, or soon will)

3) the scheduling aspect is hard which means trials are backlogged and take ages to start (once a trial starts, they are relatively quick, at least in some countries)

It is not scheduling that is hard – people are summoned not invited to court. It's all the preliminary steps that judges and lawyers have a vested interest in keeping as complicated as they can get away with.

@Odoacre additional issue, which I thought of because of the Trump conviction.

If the court system overall works faster, then it is less worth to appeal; even when someone knows they're guilty and will likely lose the appeal, they still do because that causes them to face the consequences later, which is better given that time preference is a thing, and the longer this delay the better. This benefits disproportionately the elite, who have deeper pockets and can afford more procedural shenanigans.

So elites might not want faster procedures overall, and their political views are over-represented.

When would this resolve No? It doesn't give any criteria for when...

@Luvexina resolves NO by default at market close if it has not happened by then.

A few more details about the resolution criteria would be appreciated. (Jurisdiction, type of trial, AI assisted Jurors counting or not, etc…)

@Broseph I've added some details but I'm not really a legal expert so it's still pretty vague, I'm happy to take suggestions though if you have any