Pakistan makes legal history - judge uses ChatGPT to decide a case

An artificial intelligence system developed by OpenAI, Chat GPT was released in November 2021 and took the world of Artificial Intelligence and content-creation by storm. It created headlines worldwide by stimulating human speech, responding to specific and customized questions, and imitating the syntax of natural language. In simpler words, ChatGPT can engage in human-like conversations and answer a wide range of personalized user questions.

ChatGPT operates on the technical model of a Generative Pre-trained Transformer and is tuned to utilize large amounts of text to produce personalized responses. Like a chat box, you ask ChatGPT a question, and using its massive amount of information, it outputs a response.

Recently a Pakistani court made legal history by using ChatGPT to make a case decision; This event is historic because for the first time, an artificial intelligence system has been utilized in a court of law to decide a case, and therefore, it has set a precedent for integrating technology into the legal world.

The case involved a dispute between two contract parties in which the petitioner was a 13-year-old child and was accused of taking the complainant’s nine-year-old son to a desolate location to sexually abuse him. A plethora of information, including agreements, texts, and documented communications between the parties was presented to the court. The court tested and examined ChatGPT for the analysis of such a large amount of data and for extracting useful information.

Judge Muhammad Amir in Mandi Bahauddin, recognizing the potential of artificial intelligence in enhancing the efficiency and accuracy of legal processes, relied on ChatGPT for legal consultation. Since such cases involve massive amounts of data and intricate legal concepts, technology can be highly useful for giving intelligent judgment.

Judge Amir concluded that the suspect can be given bail as there were many loopholes in the case; Especially, since the FIR was lodged two days after the incident and both families had personal enmity.

Judge asked ChatGPT if the 13-year-old boy can be granted post-arrest bail. Software responded that the Juvenile Justice System Act 2018 is enforced in Pakistan and its Section 12 allows the court to grant conditional bail to the suspect. After asking 18 questions about the AI software, when given all the facts, the software said that bail can be granted to the boy.

The judge did say that he used ChatGPT for the synthesis of case conclusion as a mere experiment, but one cannot deny the exponentially grown reliability of humankind on technology and artificial intelligence. Introducing advanced technology into the legal system could revolutionize the field and ease many burdens of the human mind by giving relevant, reliable, and accurate judgments. Even in the aforementioned case, the software was able to analyze voluminous data and information and reach a near-accurate decision. This is landmark decision is a historical achievement for the legal system in Pakistan.