Should Artificial Intelligence Be Allowed to Assist Judicial Decisions?

By Andrew S.Kalish

The question of whether Artificial Intelligence (AI) should be allowed to assist judicial decision-making no longer belongs to the realm of speculation. It is already a live issue confronting courts, regulators, and legal professionals worldwide. The real debate today is not whether AI will appear in the judicial process, but how far its role should extend without undermining the integrity of justice.

The answer emerging from recent guidance and research is cautious, principled, and deliberately restrained: AI may assist judges, but it must never replace them.

AI in Courts: Already Present, Carefully Contained

Contrary to popular fears, AI is not deciding cases in the UK. Judicial authority remains firmly human. What AI already does, however, is support the judicial system in peripheral yet increasingly significant ways—document review, case management, legal research support, and administrative efficiency

This distinction matters. The use of Technology Assisted Review (TAR) in disclosure, for example, has long been accepted because it accelerates document handling without encroaching on judicial reasoning. The controversy arises when AI shifts from assistance to recommendation: predicting outcomes, suggesting sentencing ranges, or evaluating risk.

It is at this threshold that judicial systems have drawn a bright line. 

Judicial Guidance: A Firm Red Line Around Decision-Making

United Kingdom’s Courts and Tribunals published Artificial Intelligence (AI)  - Guidance for Judicial Office Holders dated the 31st of October 2025 (“the guidance”) to assist Judicial Office Holders in relation to the use of AI. The guidance is explicit. Any use of AI must be consistent with the judiciary’s overriding duty to protect the integrity of the administration of justice. Judges remain personally responsible for everything issued in their name, regardless of technological assistance

The guidance identifies several acute risks:

  • Hallucinations, including fabricated cases and incorrect legal propositions
  • Opacity, where AI reasoning cannot be explained or scrutinised
  • Bias, inherited from historical data and entrenched inequalities
  • Confidentiality breaches, especially when public AI tools are used

Crucially, the guidance rejects the idea that AI can perform legal analysis or judicial reasoning reliably. At best, it may summarise materials or assist administratively. At worst, it risks contaminating judicial independence with unverified, biased, or opaque outputs.

This is not technological conservatism—it is constitutional caution. 

Accountability Cannot Be Automated

Judicial legitimacy depends on reasoned decisions that can be appealed, scrutinised, and justified in open court. AI systems, particularly large language models, struggle to meet this standard. Even their developers may not fully understand how a specific output was generated.

Delegating or diluting judicial responsibility to a machine creates an accountability vacuum. When liberty, livelihood, or family life is at stake, society demands to know who decided and why. Software cannot be cross-examined. Algorithms cannot be held in contempt. Only human judges can shoulder that burden.

As the guidance emphasises, AI may assist, but judges must always read the underlying documents and engage directly with evidence in the cases before them.

The Professional Context: AI as an Enabler, Not a Substitute

This cautious approach aligns with broader professional trends. The Thomson Reuters Future of Professionals Report  - How AI is the Catalyst for Transforming Every Aspect of Work (August 2023) finds overwhelming optimism about AI as a productivity and efficiency tool—but equally strong concern about accuracy, ethics, and accountability. Professionals consistently emphasise that AI’s value lies in freeing humans to focus on higher-order judgment, not replacing it

In the legal profession, this translates into a clear division of labour:

  • Machines handle scale, speed, and pattern recognition
  • Humans retain judgment, discretion, and responsibility

Courts, as the apex of legal authority, must be even more conservative than law firms or in-house teams in maintaining this balance.

Bias, Consistency, and the Illusion of Neutrality

Proponents of AI in sentencing and risk assessment often argue that algorithms could enhance consistency and reduce disparity. Yet this assumes that historical data reflects justice rather than systemic bias. If past decisions were unequal, AI trained on them risks laundering bias through mathematics.

The guidance aforementioned expressly warns judges to remain alert to such distortions and to correct them where they arise, reinforcing that equality before the law cannot be outsourced to statistical models

Consistency without justice is not progress.

A Tool, Not a Judge

So, should AI be allowed to assist judicial decisions?

Yes—but only as a secondary, tightly controlled tool, never as a decision-maker, and never in a way that obscures accountability. The emerging consensus is pragmatic rather than ideological. AI can help courts manage overwhelming workloads, summarise materials, and streamline administration. It cannot—and must not—replace judicial reasoning. The future of justice will not be purely human or purely artificial. It will be a carefully governed collaboration, where technology supports the judiciary without diluting the human values that underpin the rule of law.

As courts experiment cautiously and regulators refine guardrails, one principle remains non-negotiable: justice must always have a human face.