Perceptions of Justice By Algorithms

Gizem Yalcin, Erlis Themeli*, Evert Stamhuis, Stefan Philipsen, Stefano Puntoni

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

23 Citations (Scopus)
131 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence and algorithms are increasingly able to replace human workers in cognitively sophisticated tasks, including ones related to justice. Many governments and international organizations are discussing policies related to the application of algorithmic judges in courts. In this paper, we investigate the public perceptions of algorithmic judges. Across two experiments (N = 1,822), and an internal meta-analysis (N = 3,039), our results show that even though court users acknowledge several advantages of algorithms (i.e., cost and speed), they trust human judges more and have greater intentions to go to the court when a human (vs. an algorithmic) judge adjudicates. Additionally, we demonstrate that the extent that individuals trust algorithmic and human judges depends on the nature of the case: trust for algorithmic judges is especially low when legal cases involve emotional complexities (vs. technically complex or uncomplicated cases).

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)269-292
Number of pages24
JournalArtificial Intelligence and Law
Volume31
Issue number2
Early online date5 Apr 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research was funded by the Erasmus Initiative ‘Dynamics of Inclusive Prosperity’ and Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM). Erlis Themeli has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 726,032): project ‘Building EU Civil Justice’.

Publisher Copyright: © 2022, The Author(s).

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