The Supreme Court is considering turning to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to help them in drafting decisions.
SC court administrator Raul Villanueva disclosed this during the Senate finance subcommittee’s hearing on the proposed P63.57-billion budget of the judiciary for 2025.
“Insofar as providing us data, Your Honor, for policy and decision-making, with respect to coming out with draft decisions, AI can also be utilized also with respect to that,” Villanueva said responding to a question raised by Sen. Grace Poe, chairperson of the subcommittee.
Villanueva also said the SC is also starting to develop “voice to text” transcription.
“In other words, while the testimony is being given, it's already being recorded and transcribed, Your Honor. And hopefully, we can come up with an AI that can translate already, for example, testimonies in one dialect can be converted already into, for example, Ilocano to English,” he added.
Poe, however, reminded the SC not to depend much on AI to ensure that the decisions reflect a "human side.”
“Of course, we won’t rely too much on AI, but it can give an option just to countercheck also the human side of a decision because we might have forgotten something. I assume that’s how it is," Poe said.
To which SC Associate Justice Mario Lopez agreed and assured the Senate that the SC will not rely on AI since “there is some humanity involved in the disposition of cases.”
“We are not totally dependent on AI. Because as the good senator has said there is also some consideration in the decision,” Lopez said.
“In fact there are decisions which should not be left to the control of AI because the courts are not only courts of law,” the justice added.
In fact, Lopez said AI is not effective enough in the conduct of bar examinations.
“Indeed, there were some questions that were referred to the AI and I reviewed over it, they are not exactly correct. So that means, the human mind is still better. The humanity will still prevail than AI,” he said.
AI, however, would be effective to use in the monitoring of cases using technology.
“The Supreme Court would like to make sure that our judges and, of course, eventually our justices would be able to monitor the progress of their cases so that aging cases can be given a priority as well,” Villanueva said.
“And AI, insofar, as providing us data for policy and decision-making, Your Honor, with respect to coming out with draft decisions, AI can also be utilized also with respect to that,” he stressed.