Adoption of Artificial Intelligence in the Judiciary: A Comparison of 28 Advanced Democracies

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly used worldwide to make decisions, be it by public administrations, industry, banks, or insurers. One area with a particularly high impact on citizens is its use in judiciary processes. To this day, there has been too little investigation into what drives the willingness of a country to present itself as adopting AI in its judiciary. In this article, we show that the mere promise of efficiency gains is not enough of an explanation for the claim of adopting AI within judiciary processes. We show that the administrative burden (as measured by the number of days to trial), a government’s leaning within the political spectrum (namely towards the left), and the level of adoption of technology by governments in bordering neighboring countries predict countries’ announcement to adopt AI in their judiciary. Together, our findings from a data analysis of 28 advanced democracies form a theory of adoption respectively around functionality, politics, and diffusion of AI in the judiciary.