Tag: Judge

Robot judges in Estonia? American AI sentencing criminals to prison? Computers predicting crimes before they even happen? One may be forgiven for thinking such concepts come straight from a science fiction novel, or the rabid rantings of an online conspiracy theorist. The truth is they are all part of today’s reality. And it looks like it’s only a matter of time before concepts like predictive policing and artificial intelligence will be an everyday feature of justice systems worldwide. 
The other night I had the craziest dream. Remember Haley Joel Osment? He's that cute-but-oh-so-creepy little weird kid with the Sad Sack face who kept seeing dead people in M. Night Shymalan’s 1999 supernatural horror-movie The Sixth Sense. If you were as spooked as I definitely was by that things-that-go-bump-in-the-night ghost story, you won’t have forgotten this kid in a hurry. But then, as if The Sixth Sense wasn't quite spooky enough, in 2001 he backed it up with a dark and contemplative tale called AI Artificial Intelligence, which was even more disturbing. This time he played – surprise, surprise – another cute, creepy little weird kid, only with a slight and distinctly unsettling difference. He’s a robot.