Who fears the robot judges

Abstract

The use of artificial intelligence in law has been analyzed from different point of view, one of the most interesting being that based on Georg H. von Wright seminal works that inspired also some research activities in the Institute for Legal Documentation (IDG) of the National Research Council of Italy in 1980s and 1990s. Forty years have been passed and many things have changed and brought new challenges. There is a large exploitation of electronic data and information in many areas of law and justice and there are very advanced ICT tools supporting legal professionals. Even there are doomsayers who predict the dominion of machines over men. They forget something that is constant and that cannot change: fear is connatural to human life, the fact is whether it blocks us or allows us to move forward, even with fear. The fear that machine will replace man for the time being is exaggerated.