SC eyes AI aid in drafting decisions

The Supreme Court (SC) is eyeing to use artificial intelligence (AI) as a tool in drafting decisions.

This was disclosed by Court Administrator Raul Villanueva at the Senate finance subcommittee hearing on the Judiciary's P63.57 billion proposed budget for 2025.

"AI, insofar as providing us data for policy and decision making with respect to coming out with draft decisions, AI can also be utilized also with respect to that," Villanueva said when asked to provide more details on how AI is being considered by the SC.

Senator Grace Poe, who presided over the hearing, reminded SC not to depend much on AI to ensure that "human side" is reflected in the decisions.

"Of course, we won’t rely too much on AI, but it can give an option just to countercheck also the human side of a decision because we might have forgotten something. I assume that’s how it is," Poe said.

Humanity

SC Associate Justice Mario Lopez assured the Senate that the SC will not rely on AI because "there is some humanity involved in the disposition of cases."

"I just want to mention about this AI, which the good senator has mentioned. We are not totally dependent on AI because as the good senator has said, there is also some iniquitous consideration in the decision," Lopez said.

"In fact, there are some decisions which should not be left to the control of the AI because the court is not only a courts of law, but we are also a courts of equity," he added.

Lopez also cited examples when AI was not effective enough, particularly in the conduct of the bar exams.

"In the previous bar exam, there were some insinuations that the AI will do the correction of the booklets but that is totally false. In fact, now, I am the bar chair for 2024. Indeed, there were some questions that were referred to the AI and I reviewed over it, they are not exactly correct. So that means, the human mind is still better. The humanity will still prevail than AI," the associate justice said.

Monitoring

Aside from legal research, Villanueva said that AIs are also being considered in monitoring the progress of cases in the SC.

"The SC would like to make sure that our judges and of course eventually our justices would be able to monitor the progress of their cases so that aging cases can be given priority as well," he said.

Further, Villanueva disclosed that the SC is developing voice-to-text transcription.

"While the testimony is being given, it’s already being recorded and transcribed," he said.

The SC is also eyeing to come up with an AI that can translate different Filipino languages to English.

"For example, Ilocano to English. That’s also something we’re already looking into. In fact, we are doing something with respect to some programs that we’re conducting. We’re using AI to translate some messages, some speeches that are being given in the vernacular and translate it into English already," Villanueva said.

The budget of the Judiciary was deemed submitted for plenary deliberations. —VAL, GMA Integrated News