Artificial Intelligence and law
The law is a societally important and scientifically rich and challenging application domain of artificial intelligence. Much of my research in this field has been on computational models of legal argumentation. Early work was my my 1997 book
(a revised and extended version of my 1993 PhD thesis). Subsequently I
developed with Giovanni
Sartor a logic for rule-based legal argumentation [Prakken & Sartor 1996]. In this logic the standards for comparing arguments are also debatable.
Other topics I have studied are Dialogue game models of legal procedures; see, for instance, my AI & Law Journal article on
A formal model of adjudication dialogues and an application of this model in a case study; and
Formal modelling of burdens of proof, with Giovanni Sartor, applying our argumentation logic in the context of my work on dialogue models of legal procedure; see e.g. our
ICAIL-2007 and JURIX-2011 papers.
My current work in AI and Law focuses on four main themes:
- The computer judge. The recent successes in machine learning have led many in the legal world to believe that the computer judge is near. Some recent algorithms that predict outcomes of legal cases are often cited as evidence. I believe that these expectations are largely based on misconceptions of what such predictive models can do for the law. I have recently (co-)written two papers in Dutch journals about this: Prakken (NJB 2018, English translation) and Bex & Prakken (AA 2020, English translation). With Floris Bex I also have an ICAIL 2021 paper on the relevance of algorithmic decision predictors for judicial decision making, and a JURIX 2021 paper on whether predictive justice can improve the consistency of judicial decision-making. My NJB 2018 paper was cited by the Dutch minister of Justice in a letter to the Dutch parliament. I was interviewed about the 'robot judge' in the Dutch newspaper Trouw.
- Legal reasoning about evidence. See, for example, two articles in Law, Probability & Risk
(2004, 2014), my
2004 AI & Law Journal paper with Floris Bex, Chris Reed and Doug Walton on formalising evidential argument schemes, my
ICAIL-2005 paper on accrual of arguments, an edited volume on Legal Evidence and Proof: Statistics, Stories, Logic, a recently co-edited special issue of Topics in Cognitive Science on Models of Rational Proof in Criminal Law,
and two double PhD projects:
Associations,
interest groups, resources, blogs, ...
Workshops and Conferences
Future:
- 35th International Conference on Legal Knowledge and Information Systems (JURIX 2022).
Saarbruecken (Germany), 14-16 December 2022.
- 19th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law (ICAIL 2023).
Braga (Portugal), 19-23 June 2023.
Past:
- International Conferences on Artificial Intelligence and Law
(ICAIL).
- International Conferences on Legal Knowledge and Information Systems
(JURIX).
-
Summer Schools on Law and Logic,
Fiesole, Forence (Italy).
-
AI & Law Summer Schools. Fiesole, Florence (Italy).
-
LEX Summerschools on managing legal sources. Florence/Ravenna (Italy).
- International Workshops on Juris-informatics (JURISIN):
2007-2018,
2019.
- International Conferences on Alternative Methods of Argumentation in Law, Brno, Czech republic:
2011,
2012,
2013.
- Conferences on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency
(FAccT).
-
Symposium on
Law and Artificial Intelligence: Not a World Apart, Utrecht (The Netherlands), 18 May 2022.
-
1st Workshop on Programming Languages and the Law
(ProLaLa 2022), Philadelphia (USA), 16 January 2022.
-
AAAI 2021 Symposium on Implementing AI Ethics.
Palo Alto, CA (USA), 22-24 March 2021.
-
MIREL workshop on MIning and REasoning with Legal texts.
Luxemburg, 17 September 2018.
- Conference on Recent developments in Artificial Intelligence: Law and Justice.
Montreal (Canada), 27 October 2016.
- ECAI 2016 Workshop on AI for Justice.
The Hague (The Netherlands), 30 August 2016.
- Workshop Responsible Intelligent Systems in Perspective; where Computer Science, Philosophy and Legal Theory meet
Utrecht (The Netherlands), 18-19 April 2016.
- Zif Workshop on Models of Rational Proof in Criminal Law.
Bielefeld (Germany), 28-30 September 2015.
- 2nd International Conference on Quantitative Aspects of Justice and Fairness (QAIJF 2011)
Fiesole, Florence (Italy), 25-26 February 2011.
- Conference on Graphic and Visual
Representations of Evidence and Inference in Legal Settings (conference brochure)
New York, USA, 28-29 January 2007.
- Workshop `Dialectical Legal Argument:
Formal and Informal Models'.
Tilburg (The Netherlands), 12 December 1996.
Journals
Research projects
Research Groups, Labs
People
Kevin Ashley
Katie Atkinson
Trevor Bench-Capon
Floris Bex
Karl Branting
Tom van Engers
Tom Gordon
Guido Governatori
Matthias Grabmair
Jaap Hage
John Horty
Jeroen Keppens
Daniel Katz
Ron Loui
ThorneMcCarty
Dory Reiling
Edwina Rissland
Giovanni Sartor
Marek Sergot
Burkhard Schaefer
Harry Surden
Bart Verheij
Radboud Winkels
Adam Wyner