BAGUIO CITY – Nilinaw ni Supreme Court (SC) Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen na may lugar ang artificial intelligence (AI) sa korte, pero katuwang lang ito ng hukom at hindi kapalit sa pagdedesisyon ng kaso.
Sa briefing na “Digitalization & Artificial Intelligence in the Courts of Justice” sa SC Session Hall sa Baguio City, sinabi ni Leonen na tanging Scriptix, ang voice-to-text transcription tool, ang pinapayagang AI application sa hudikatura.
Aniya, kailangan muna ng SC en banc approval ang iba pang AI apps.
Dinaluhan ang briefing ng trial court judges, clerks of courts, legal researchers, at court stenographers mula sa Cordillera region. Bahagi ito ng pagtalakay sa “Governance Framework on the Use of Human-Centered Augmented Intelligence in the Judiciary” o AI Governance Framework, na inaprubahan ng SC En Banc noong February 18.
Suporta ang framework sa Strategic Plan for Judicial Innovations 2022-2027 (SPJI), na layong gawing moderno ang court operations at mas mahusay ang administration of justice sa pamamagitan ng teknolohiya.
Bilang head ng working group na bumuo ng AI Governance Framework, sinabi ni Leonen na maaaring tumulong ang machine sa research, scheduling, drafting, at analytics, “but it may never adjudicate.”
Ayon kay Leonen, kahit kaya ng automated system na gumawa ng flawless legal prose, gayahin ang anyo ng argumento, at maglabas ng output na kahawig ng estilo ng hukom, wala itong tunay na pagkaunawa sa batas, sa paghihirap ng tao, o sa bigat ng desisyong ginagawa.
“The fabrication we politely call hallucinations are at once plausible but false. So a recommendation in sentencing or in a bail substitutes prediction for judgment and dresses the bias of the past in the robe of neutral science. The machine cannot reach the suffering behind the case filed, the credibility written in a witness’ silence, or the justice that a mere technicality would defeat,” sabi ni Leonen.
Tinalakay din niya ang bigat ng paper-based court system, kabilang ang mga delay, limitadong access, at administrative burden. Ayon kay Leonen, makatutulong ang digitalized systems sa matagal nang problema sa korte.
“Remote filing, online hearing, digital records remove the barrier of distance so that a marginalized litigant may participate without ruinous travel,” sabi niya.
Pero nagbabala rin siya sa mga panganib ng teknolohiya, gaya ng limited internet connectivity, digital exclusion, tampering, at cyberattacks.
“The question is never whether to modernize. It is whether we remain sovereign over the rules that we allow,” sabi ni Leonen.
Ipinaliwanag din niya na gumagana ang AI sa pamamagitan ng induction, kung saan gumagamit ang machine ng past data, observed instances, at patterns para mag-predict ng posibleng resulta.
Pero babala niya, hindi dapat balewalain ng korte ang dalawang panganib: “no number of past instances can guarantee the next,” at “the past from which the systems generalize is not a neutral record of the world.”
Ayon kay Leonen, mas delikado kung hihinto na ang korte sa pag-iisip dahil sa numero o sa prediction.
“It tells us to stop thinking, and to stop thinking is the one thing a court must never do. The number arrives wearing the robe of neutrality,” sabi niya.
“Statistics treats the past as the best predictor of the future. That is its methodological commitment. But in law, the past may precisely be what we are trying to overcome. The entire apparatus of rehabilitation, probation, juvenile justice, restorative processes, rests on the premise that the person is not identical to what they have done,” dagdag ni Leonen.
Dahil dito, ibinatay ng SC ang AI Governance Framework sa anim na guiding principles: human primacy, explicability, auditability, equal access, institutional sovereignty, at continuous leaning.
Binanggit ni Leonen ang paggamit ng Judiciary sa Scriptix bilang halimbawa ng human primacy.
“No matter how accurate the transcript is, the stenographer will still look over it and make sure that it is accurate,” sabi niya. /Bistado