AI System 206 Replacing Human Prosecutors in China

The Chinese government has developed the AI system 206, an artificial intelligence prosecutor designed to alleviate the workload of prosecutors in China. The system is allegedly capable of prosecuting “Shanghai’s eight most common crimes.” The AI was ‘trained’ using “17,000 real-life cases from 2015 to 2020.” Fears abound that the technology could be weaponized by the state, potentially charging citizens for political dissent.

According to a Dailyalts.com story in 2019, the AI was first officially tested in a Shanghai court in early 2019. It was also trialed in several provinces in 2018. The system can perform the following tasks with an alleged 97% accuracy:

• Transcribe testimony
• Transfer physical data and documents to electronic databases
• Display relevant parameters immediately, such as time, place, people, behavior, and consequences
• Identify defective or contradicting evidence
• Respond to oral commands to display evidence and information on screens around the courtroom
• Inter-connect with judicial, procuratorial, public security authorities and courts

The crimes that the AI can prosecute “include ‘provoking trouble’ —a term used to stifle dissent in China, credit card fraud, gambling crimes, dangerous driving, theft, fraud, intentional injury, and obstructing official duties.”

In February of 2017, the Political and Judiciary Commission under the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China tasked courts in Shanghai to develop and test an AI system to assist with prosecutions. Between 2017 and 2019, Shanghai allocated more than “400 people from courts, procuratorates, and public security bureaus, working with more than 300 IT staff from tech giant iFLYTEK” to develop the technology. The company was established in 1999 and is a well-known speech recognition and artificial intelligence developer. From the iFLYTEK website:

“Since its establishment, the company is devoted to cornerstone technological research in speech and languages, natural language understanding, machine learning, machine reasoning, adaptive learning, and has maintained the world-leading position in those domains. The company actively promotes the development of AI products and their sector-based applications, with visions of enabling machines to listen and speak, understand and think, creating a better world with artificial intelligence.”

The system runs on a standard computer that employs algorithms based on evidence collection from “102 common cases” programmed into the system. The AI can pull up questioning models for law enforcement and “can help the judge find fact, authenticate evidence[s], protect the right to appeal and judge impartially on the trial, so as to prevent wrongfully convicted cases,” according to Guo Weiqing, president of Shanghai No 2 Intermediate People’s Court. It translates voice into characters and “can distinguish between questioner and responder.” The software captures salient elements of cases from electronic files. According to NotTheBee, some cities in China have used AI “to monitor government employees’ social circles and activities to detect corruption.”

The technology is also being used in the U.S., according to InterestingEngineering.com. With the backlog of cases piling up due to COVID, the use of AI has picked up to “streamline” judicial processes. The use of forensic algorithms is particularly popular in the collection of evidence:

Read More HERE