Judges in England, Wales approved for limited, cautious AI use: 'Can't hold back the floodgates'

Judges in England and Wales will have approval for "careful use" of artificial intelligence (AI) to help produce rulings, but experts remain divided over how extensively judges or the wider law profession should seek to use the technology. "I would say AI is probably appropriate to cast a wide net to gather as much information as possible," William A. Jacobson, a Cornell University Law professor and founder of the Equal Protection Project, told Fox News Digital. "That might inform your decision, but I don't think it is at a place now – and I don't know if it ever will be – that it can actually do the sorting … and make the sort of decisions and determinations that you need to make, whether it's as a judge or a lawyer," Jacobson said. The Courts and Tribunals Judiciary, the body of various judges, magistrates, tribunal members and coroners in England and Wales, decided that judges may use AI to write opinions, and only opinions, with no leeway to use the technology for research or legal analyses due to the potential for AI to fabricate information and provide misleading, inaccurate and biased information. Caution over AI's use in the legal field partially stems from a few high-profile blunders that resulted from lawyers experimenting with the tech, which produced court filings that included references to fictional cases, known as "hallucinations."