KUCHING, Jan 17 (Bernama) — The judiciary of Sabah and Sarawak has taken the first step in embracing artificial intelligence (AI) by getting a machine to assist judicial officers in determining appropriate sentences for certain criminal offences.
Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Tan Sri David Wong Dak Wah said in line with the theme ‘Justice and Beyond’ for this legislative year, they will be launching three new applications, namely, AI for sentencing, Self-Representing Litigants Apps and the Social Media website for the East Malaysian Courts.
“The use of the AI machine will only act as a guideline to the judicial officers in coming to his or her decisions.
“In embracing AI, we are fully aware that the use of AI does not breach the rule of law. We will disclose the algorithm in which the machine operates,” he said at the launch of Sabah and Sarawak Legislative Year 2020 here today.
Wong said the legal profession cannot ignore the emergence of AI as machines which could predict an outcome of disputes were already in existence.
“What they (judicial officers) do is to put (key) in all (past) judgments of the courts into the application which had all the algorithm or formula to understand and diagnose the dispute and then provide a solution to the dispute.
“This is already happening in the United States and Australia where practitioners use this AI machine as a tool to negotiate a settlement prior to going into litigation,” he said.
Wong added that the application is currently at a pilot test phase and is expected to be operational by the end of this month.