Judges have become “human filters” as AI reaches an “untenable stage” in Australian courts, the Chief Justice says

The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court says judges across Australia are acting as “human filters” for legal arguments created using AI, warning that the use of machine-generated content in the courts has reached unsustainable levels.

Stephen Gageler said on the first day of the Australian Legal Convention in Canberra on Friday that the inappropriate use of AI content by litigants representing themselves in court proceedings and by trained legal practitioners, including machine-assisted reasoning, preparing evidence and drafting legal submissions.

Gageler said there was growing evidence that the courts had reached an “untenable phase” of AI use in litigation, where judges and magistrates would have to act “as human filters and human arbiters of competing machine-generated or machine-enhanced arguments.”

However, he said AI technology could be of great benefit to the legal system, describing its potential to help create a civil justice system that is “fair, prompt and…”