China's Courts Look to A.I. for Smarter Judgments - The News Lens International Edition

The judiciary in China will tap into the power of artificial intelligence to build "smarter courts," according to recent news reports. Smarter courts will take advantage of big data, cloud computing, neural networks and machine learning, Zhou Qiang (周強), the head of the Supreme People's Court, announced at the 3rd World Internet Conference in Wuzhen Town, in China's eastern Zhejiang province on Thursday, Sixth Tone's sister publication The Paper reported. Big data refers to extremely large data sets that can be analyzed for trends and associations. China's judicial system has already begun to harness the power of big data, with a national online database of millions of case rulings established in January 2014, as well as a rival open-source database created by Beijing law firm Tiantong. Neural networks are computing systems loosely modeled on human and animal brains, while cloud computing provides shared, internet-based processing resources to devices as they require it.