In a first for Latin America, a judge in Colombia has caused a stir by announcing that he had prepared a ruling in a children’s medical rights case based on the AI chatbot ChatGPT.
Colombian Supreme Court Judge Juan Manuel Padilla said that he used the text-generating chatbot in a case considering a request to exonerate an autistic child from paying fees for healthcare threatments, medical appointments, therapy, and transportation, based on his parents’ low income.
Judge told Blu Radio that ChatGPT and other such AI tools could be useful to “facilitate the drafting of texts and speeches”, but that such technologies should not be used to ” replace” judges.
This decision has highlighted the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to be applied in law. AI-driven technologies such as ChatGPT, a natural language processing system, are increasingly being used to automate the generation of legal text.
The use of AI-driven technologies in a legal context has raised several ethical and legal questions. For instance, using AI-driven technologies to prepare court documents and rulings could be seen as a form of “automated lawyering”. Critics argue that this could exclude important legal considerations from the ruling process.
At the same time, some commentators have argued that AI-driven technologies can help to reduce the burden on lawyers and judges and can assist in speeding up the legal process. For example, AI-driven technologies can be used to generate court documents and rulings quickly and accurately.
The ruling in Colombia has also raised questions about the potential for AI-driven technologies to replace lawyers and judges in the future. While AI-driven technologies will likely replace lawyers and judges any time soon, the use of AI-driven technologies to automate the generation of legal text could become increasingly common in the years to come.