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 little investigation into why countries decide to adopt AI in this area. In this article, we show that the mere promise of efficiency gains is not enough of an explanation for why countries adopt AI within judiciary processes. Instead, 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 neighboring countries predict countries’ announcement to adopt AI in their judiciary. Taken together, our findings derived from a data analysis of 28 advanced democracies constitute an important step towards a better understanding of the factors shaping AI’s integration into judiciary processes.