Paper short abstract:

There seems to be a widely shared intuition that human decision as such has value. Is this intuition justified, and could it persist even if AI outperformed humans on every measurable level? This talk aims to explore these questions with regard to the judge from an ethical and a legal perspective.

Paper long abstract:

The admissibility of AI deciding over humans has been widely discussed. The answers vary but are mostly based on a comparison of the capabilities of humans and AI. The question of the value of human decisions is usually not addressed explicitly. However, it should be the starting point for all further considerations, especially when it comes to the use of AI in court, for law is made by humans for humans.

This human-focused concept of law and legal application prevalent in modern democracies implies certain mutual expectations and thereto related responsibilities. One of the constitutive ideas in this context is the question of what we, as humans, owe one another. The notions of role reversibility and answerability pick up on this. Role reversibility follows the principle of inversion, i.e. the ability to put oneself into someone else’s shoes. Answerability underlines that a human is not only responsible for something, but also towards something or someone. Combining these two ideas with the concept of a judicial judgement as an act of participating in a shared political morality of a community results in attesting a value to a human judge and its decision beyond certain abilities.

Now, what would happen if we replaced a human judge with AI? Could (and if so: should) we hold on to our current concept of law revolving around humans? Or do we need to fundamentally rethink and reform our legal system? This talk aims to explore these questions from an ethical and a legal perspective.