China's love for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning has now resulted in a smart prosecutor bot that can press charges on criminal behavior with up to 97-percent accuracy. The AI prosecutor was developed by a team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences' big data and knowledge management lab headed by Professor Shi Yong – who claims that the machine can determine a crime and file a charge solely based on a verbal description of what happened. The AI program currently runs on a desktop computer, and was developed to its current state after the team trained it between 2015 and 2020 using over 17,000 different criminal cases. Currently, the bot can charge suspects using 1,000 different "traits" derived from human-described case documentations, and can be used to charge some of Shanghai's most common felonies – including fraud, credit card fraud, theft, intentional harm, dangerous driving, obstructions of justice, running illegal gambling operations, and provoking trouble. While this sounds pretty revolutionary overall, it isn't the first time China has used AI in its justice system.

In the week that drew 2021 to a close, the tech news cycle died down, as it typically does. Even an industry as fast-paced as AI needs a reprieve, sometimes -- especially as a new COVID-19 variant upends plans and major conferences. But that isn't to say late December wasn't eventful. One of the most talked-about stories came from the South China Morning Post (SCMP), which described an "AI prosecutor" developed by Chinese researchers that can reportedly identify crimes and press charges "with 97% accuracy." The system -- which was trained on 1,000 "traits" sourced from 17,000 real-life cases of crimes from 2015 to 2020, like gambling, reckless driving, theft, and fraud -- recommends sentences given a brief text description.