England and Wales Judiciary Approves Cautious Use of AI in Legal Rulings

Guidance issued last month permits AI use in writing opinions, but warns against its use for research or legal analyses due to risk of misinformation.

The Courts and Tribunals Judiciary in England and Wales have given judges permission to use artificial intelligence (AI) to help produce rulings, marking a significant step for the 1,000-year-old legal system.
The guidance issued last month stressed that AI should not be used for research or legal analyses due to the risk of fabricated, misleading, inaccurate and biased information.
Master of the Rolls Geoffrey Vos, the second-highest ranking judge in England and Wales, stated that judges must protect confidence and take full personal responsibility for everything they produce.
The guidance is filled with warnings about the limitations of AI and potential problems if a user is unaware of how it works, including a specific admonition about chatbots like ChatGPT.
Despite the cautious approval, the guidance has been criticized for not having a clear accountability mechanism, with questions raised about how it will be enforced and who will oversee compliance.