Saturday, September 16, 2006

Computer Judge

Xinhua:

A court in China has used a software program to help decide prison sentences in more than 1,500 criminal cases, a Hong Kong newspaper said Wensday.

Judges enter details of a case and the system produces a sentence, the paper said.

    "The software can avoid abuse of discretionary power of judges as a result of corruption or insufficient training," the paper quoted Zichuan District People's Court chief judge, Wang Hongmei, as saying.

The article leaves many questions open, but I liked the idea that they are using an expert system for its impartiality (alright, exper system is not a good term for systems like this - nobody has yet figured out how to replicate expert reasoning in a computer. Maybe "clerk system"?).