Hong Kong judges try out AI tool to speed up transcribing notes, but courts still wary about bringing in ChatGPT

Hong Kong’s judiciary will assess using artificial intelligence (AI) more widely in courtrooms, but there are no plans to allow judges to use the ChatGPT tool to speed up their work. A pilot scheme for judges and judicial officers to use real-time Cantonese voice-to-text transcription involving AI would be completed in the third quarter of the year, a judiciary spokesman said. “We will then review and assess the practicality of making a wider use of the voice-to-text technology by all judges and judicial officers as an aide to their performance of judicial functions in courtrooms and chambers by the end of this year,” he said. The trial began in 2021, using software products from two local technology companies, but initial results showed there was “much room for improvement”, especially in transcribing legal jargon, the judiciary said. Ten judges and officers in the trial are using an improved version of the software to produce notes for their own reference during legal proceedings. The spokesman said the use of ChatGPT, which was not directly available in the city, would be banned in the courts. The AI tool, which appeared late last year, is able to draw on information available online to answer questions or write essays speedily in humanlike language that is well-written and grammatically correct. “Taking into account the fact that Hong Kong has yet been given the authority to use ChatGPT and its potential data security risk, the judiciary has no plan to allow judges and judicial officers to make use of ChatGPT in performing their judicial work,” the spokesman said. Hong Kong rolls out first AI curriculum for junior secondary students The GPT in its name stands for “Generative Pre-Trained Transformer”, which means that despite its humanlike responses, the tech tool is programmed to draw mainly on information from the internet and other sources, currently limited to material available up to 2021. The Post tested ChatGPT, by providing the relevant legal submissions on two cases and asking for its rulings, but the chatbot declined to produce a judgment on either, saying it did not have access to real-time case or court proceedings and that making legal decisions required a licensed professional. Lawyers and law firms in the city have been using AI tools in document review and due diligence work, with some venturing into generative AI, which could produce new content from a data bank. Lawyers told the Post there was room for the sector to use AI, but the technology could not replace humans in the judiciary as algorithms could not replicate critical thinking and had no legal knowledge or empathy. “What these generative AI tools have done is that they have sped up what might have taken lawyers hours to do, provided lawyers know how to use the chatbot themselves,” said Joshua Chu Kiu-wah, a solicitor specialising in technology law. Assistant Professor Eliza Mik, who researches legal technologies at Chinese University, said AI tools could not verify facts or digest legal knowledge, and needed users to steer responses by providing legal knowledge. “They do not understand the world, they do not understand or know the law,” she cautioned. Mik and Chu warned against possible “hallucinations”, referring to when generative AI tools produced logical but factually incorrect statements. In May, a judge in New York fined two lawyers US$5,000 for submitting a legal brief referencing made-up cases and citations. Lawyer Steven Schwartz, who wrote the brief, admitted that he used ChatGPT but was unaware it might include fabricated cases. In France, using AI to analyse and predict judges’ behaviour was banned in 2019, after a lawyer and machine learning expert published his analysis of French judges’ patterns in asylum case rulings. US lawyer sorry after ChatGPT creates fake cases for court filing But on mainland China, judges are mandated to consult an AI system for every case and provide written explanations if they digress from the machine’s suggestion. The AI system, which remains controversial on the mainland, automatically screens court cases for references, recommends laws and regulations, drafts legal documents and alters perceived human errors, if any, in a verdict. While authorities praised the system’s efficiency, critics were concerned about judges not challenging it and the possible erosion of judicial power. Hong Kong Law Society president Chan Chak-ming said lawyers in the city must understand the nature and limits of AI tools to fulfil their duty of competence to clients, if they wished to rely on the technology. Tech lawyer Chu said generative AI could be used to produce basic templates for lawyers and judges to work on as a way to improve the quality and speed of legal submissions, and could help clear the courts’ backlog of work. “As long as the rationale for a decision is there, an AI-assisted writing of the draft would not be that bad either,” he said. However, he added that the judiciary would have to develop its own AI system for data safety with a policy to train its staff to use it. Associate Professor Stuart Hargreaves, of Chinese University’s law faculty, said that as the technology improved, AI could be used to help lawyers and judges gather and process information. But legal decisions had to be made by humans because of the severity of the consequences, he stressed, adding that current AI tools performed poorly on tasks that required value judgment and niche knowledge. “While there will be space in the future for AI to assist in legal knowledge gathering and processing, ultimately a human must take responsibility for the output,” he said.

Hong Kong judges try out AI tool to speed up transcribing notes, but courts still wary about bringing in ChatGPT

Judges and officers test software that can provide Cantonese voice-to-text transcription in real time Lawyers, experts agree that while AI can help, it cannot replace humans in making legal decisions

Judges and officers test software that can provide Cantonese voice-to-text transcription in real time

Lawyers, experts agree that while AI can help, it cannot replace humans in making legal decisions