Paper short abstract:

This paper deals with changes in the work of legal professionals with the insertion of automation and artificial intelligence in judicial proceedings in Brazil. The ethnography involves different discussions about these technologies, which are still in implementation and regulation in the country.

Paper long abstract:

The present work is a constitutive part of an ethnography on the use of automation and artificial intelligence in legal proceedings in Brazil. My interest in the research came precisely from my position as a judicial technician in a Court of Justice (Court of Justice of the State of Paraná), where I was able to follow the rumors of lawyers and co-workers regarding the use of robots and an alleged threat of their jobs for the use of machines in the justice system. From this suggestion, I started to follow debates involving these technologies. In this presentation, I try to focus on these debates, which took place online during the pandemic, with the subsequent documents research and interviews at the Court of Justice of the State of São Paulo, the institution with the most significant number of lawsuits in Brazil and where these technologies are gradually being implemented.

During this research, questions arise, such as the division of tasks that may or may not be performed by a robot, with the categorization between mechanical or intellectual; the acceptance by public servants of the use of technology; the revision or laborious human correction of automated activities; and even the form of a digital lawsuit still arranged as a paper document. The analysis also shows how forms of organization and language typical of the corporate world have become part of the routines of professionals in public service.