AI IN ARBITRATION
Author: Sejal Kishor Patil, II year of B.A.,LL.B. from ILS Law College
Artificial Intelligence is everywhere in our life. We all have read the spectacular headlines about AI beating international players in chess or even writing poetry and many more things in our life that we don’t even realize that we are efficiently using artificial intelligence. Like simple google searches that we do the whole day, medical diagnosis at the hospital or it can be trending Alexa at our homes. Basically, AI is applied to any machine that exhibits traits associated with a human mind. Upgrading technology brings changes in society and as a law student I feel that law is a key to social changes, then doing some ‘touch up’ to law with AI might bring amazing changes in the spectacular field of law i.e AI in ARBITRATION.
How AI can be used in Arbitration?
Let’s think about in this pandemic, how technology has brought a paradigm shift in the world of Arbitration. It can be video conference proceedings, filing suit online, remote evidence in Arbitration. So, overall technology has helped us to keep working even if it was through virtual mode. And moreover, it has become a norm in the law profession. The AI-enabled software or AI embodied machines like a robot can be used in the dispute resolution procedure.
Helping hand for Arbitrator
The use of AI could fasten the contract review and establish the foremost arbitration agreement; assist with appointing arbitrators; assist with scrutinizing arbitral awards; transcription; assist with going through thousands of pages of documents to focus on those relevant to the proceedings. AI has assisted in resolving disputes faster and allowing the parties to settle.
For example, The Beijing Internet court launched an online litigation service centre, which includes 1st of its kind an AI judge. The AI judge, based on intelligent synthesizing technologies of speech and image, will help the court's judges to complete repetitive basic work, including litigation reception, and thus enables professional practitioners to focus more on judicial trials.
Substituting AI in human arbitrator’s place
Substituting a human arbitrator with AI Arbitrator can be one of the potentials of AI. The appointment of an AI arbitrator will also be much simpler. Arbitrator Intelligence produces AI Reports, which are generated by analyzing the data, scrutinizing it and considering necessary items to the case. To be accurate with decision making, AI analyses the data of past cases and then come up with a conclusion. This can be done with the relevant experience of the arbitrators on various types of issues and case laws, which provides for a reliable resource for arbitrator selection.
In fact, pre-selecting potential arbitrators supported on the subject matter required expertise, and other defined criteria can cause better arbitrator selection and efficient resolution of the dispute. Translation and transcribing programs are usually utilized in arbitrations, drastically augmenting the efficiency of arbitration processes. Further, text mining is the process of transforming unstructured text into a structured format to identify meaningful patterns and new insights. This way, huge data of evidence can be summarized by simple classification. Similarly, the relevant views of the case, the position of the parties, and procedural history can be inserted to assist in drafting the conclusion with the help of AI tools.
What is the Impact of AI?
AI is of two types,
1. Software- virtual assistants, image analysis software, search engines.
2. EmbodiedAI- robots, drones, Internet of Things[i]
One of the areas where AI has made a huge impact is web search, in our daily routine for small problems we do a web search, and it has a great impact on us because it has become an important source of information for us. For example, if we need case laws for a case, we do a simple web search and there! in front of us our desired answer in a few seconds otherwise traditionally finding in books might take hours.
AI plays an important role in cybersecurity, as there are various confidential files that arbitrators need to handle them at such times AI acts as a guard for those documents and information. Not only in our daily lives but legal profession also AI acts as a personal digital assistant.
Is AI interfering or helping in the work of the arbitrator?
It is speculated that in the near future, AI will be performing the tasks of paralegals and associates. The culture of AI(sometimes technological upgradations also) fear spans decades- from legal fiction to new culture. To the general public, AI represents a threat, and this is largely due to the lack of transparency around the technology. Famous STEM voices like Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk have publicly worried about AI affecting humans, while AI software developers are stating that their software will change the foundation of work.[ii]
In order to address this fear, we must note that AI necessarily requires a large data set and user feedback (as discussed earlier). This is specifically related to the context of arbitration, as most of the documents are confidential, and exist in much smaller data sets in comparison to other practices. The multiplicity of laws and diverse practice areas further limits the scope of training and testing. Usually, legal data isn’t available at one source only. An arbitrator has to go through many books, a lot of material, considering circumstances with EQ, as AI tools will process information in a manner that is closer to inductive reasoning, rather than deductive reasoning. All of the aspects just mentioned makes it extremely difficult for AI to imitate arbitration. In recent times, the possibility of AI-arbitrators (or, AI embodied arbitrators) replacing human arbitrations is also a wide possibility. In brief, legal decision-making requires cognitive and emotional intelligence that AI does not possess. Nevertheless, assuming such a possibility for the sake of argument, current laws across the globe are centred towards natural persons and do not allow for such a possibility. Additionally, parties of cases prefer understanding the reason why arbitrators arrived at a certain conclusion. AI cannot satisfy this requirement of giving reasons for the award, as it’s better suited to provide an artificial response based on probabilistic inference, which might lack legitimacy.
We shouldn’t forget that AI is the only artificial tool to make our life easier. But when it comes to arbitration the most important factor emotional intelligence is required and this isn’t the case with AI. It is an attempt to automate law, the time-consuming and labour-intensive processes. So far, it has only been successful in performing data related legal tasks and aiding the practitioners. AI has revolutionized many processes like web search and greatly improved procedural efficacy. Thus, practitioners and law firms should adapt to the changes to increase their efficiency. At the same time, technological interference in adjudication should be very limited, as otherwise would do more harm than good. After all, AI cannot completely substitute human practitioners and arbitrators but can become a helping hand. The much-discussed concept of machine arbitrator, following from a contrary belief, is merely fiction. On the other side of the coin, this is the world of technology that has become more significant since the COVID pandemic. Using AI in Arbitration is as advantageous also.
[i]https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20200827STO85804/what-is-artificial-intelligence-and-how-is-it-used
[ii]https://searchenterpriseai.techtarget.com/feature/Cutting-through-the-fear-of-how-AI-will-affect-jobs-through-automation