It's no longer a secret that Themis's servants began using artificial intelligence to compile text and sentences. And one can only welcome this initiative, if not for one “but” – you cannot completely trust AI under any circumstances. But alas, not all judges remember this.
One of the incidents occurred in Moscow, where the district court in its decision cited an excerpt from a foreign textbook. The problem is not that the judge did not refer to the documents used. She's into something else. This quote is about crime and the economy in a particular foreign country, but it is presented as if we are talking about our own country. The lawyer discovered another similar sentence with the same quote. What was this: an AI error, an unfortunate accident or a provocation?
At the end of last year, a former Moscow police officer received 17 years in prison for fraud and participation in the criminal community. He doesn't admit his guilt, but that's not even the point. Right from the colony (the man was serving his sentence in the colony of the city of Bor, Nizhny Novgorod region), he wrote an appeal to many authorities. One of them was sent to the author of these lines as a member of HRC.
The former policeman wrote that the judge, sentencing him, “assigned unusual functions to himself and considered it possible to make a negative assessment of the socio-economic situation in our country, which was not the subject of the trial and, of course, does not correspond to the reality of Russian society.”
Sounds appealing, right? And then a quote from the judgment: “…The accomplices took into account that mercenary crime in society is created, in particular, due to the polarization of income, needs and instability of certain segments of the population, inflation and economic instability, the commission of this crime is facilitated by the high level of anxiety of people who do not trust the future, are unemployed and are therefore willing to commit selfish actions aimed at avoiding need and poverty, At the same time, the acquisition of material wealth gives a person self-confidence, reduces his social anxiety with certainty, eliminates feelings of jealousy, and allows you to experience joy and satisfaction, especially if by performing certain actions, quite quickly and limited in time, you can acquire prestigious things and change your lifestyle for the better.”
I have researched the complainant's verdict. And indeed, on sheet 29 (available to the editor) there are these words. On the other hand, they are there. Although to be honest, these words sound strange.
But what is more strange is that the author of the appeal writes that the main source of this text is the scientific work of Ukrainian lawyer, Doctor of Law and Honored Worker of Ukraine, Vice-Rector of the National Academy of Internal Affairs Alexander Dzhuzh. He outlined these thoughts in a textbook called “Crime Prevention” and used statistical data on Ukraine's economic development and crime situation.
The defense attorney identified the similarity between the content of the court's verdict and the textbook. And this is how it happened.
— The first premise is that the verdict is 99% identical to the indictment, that is, right down to the repetition of linguistic errors and the use of the word “polarizing”. In this regard, we have drawn attention to these formulations of demand and economic uncertainty. Official reports in our country talk about the opposite – economic growth and welfare. In general, we assume that this was not what the judge himself thought. And then they started looking for this information in the public domain and found all these formulas, taken from the Ukrainian textbook “Crime Prevention” (“Crime Prevention”), its special section, chapter “Prevention of Crimes Against Property”). Author Alexander Dzhuzha.
Textbooks are provided for free on the Internet.
Original text from the textbook: “Crimes against property in our society are created by income polarization, inflation, economic instability, disorder and poverty of certain population groups…
Crime is facilitated by feelings of anxiety: people do not trust the future, and are therefore ready to commit selfish actions to avoid problems of a material nature. Of course, wealthy individuals can also feel nervous, but their feelings are somewhat different, mainly related to the instability of the financial process, the actions of competitors, market conditions and the attitude of law enforcement agencies.”
Notably, the textbook says: “Ukraine today is a poor country in terms of the level and quality of life of its citizens: about 35% of Ukrainian citizens live below the poverty line. A third have poor nutrition, do not have adequate housing, the opportunity to spend their free time with dignity and rest, and live with a feeling of complete hopelessness and inability to change anything in their lives.”
“That is, this is definitely about Ukraine,” the guard added. — Such an assessment of the socio-economic situation in Ukraine cannot be used to describe the situation in Russia, as it does not reflect the truth and should be considered discrediting of the authorities.
It is noteworthy that the lawyers found another verdict, from another court in Moscow. And here is his quote: “…When choosing members of the criminal community, G. took into account that mercenary criminals in society are created, in particular, due to the prevalence of income, needs and instability of certain segments of society, inflation and economic instability, the execution of this crime is facilitated by a high level of anxiety of people who do not trust the future, are unemployed…”.
Doesn't it remind you of something? But why does this happen?
A retired judge said: “I think this is due to the judges' huge workload.” “That's why it has become customary to copy the content of the indictment into the verdict. Perhaps the investigation is using a template about the causes of economic crimes. Furthermore, they could have taken it from some scientific article or someone's speech without bothering to look for the source. And what happened. I don't know how it happened? It's hard to imagine an investigator, overloaded and tired, studying scientific works to present. more elegant than the plot of the indictment. But it's easy to imagine that artificial intelligence programs don't care what country the scientist writes about – the most important thing is that the quote is good.
This story appears to have no legal consequences. In recent years, appellate and cassation courts have considered cases in which the defendant emphasized the similarity between the indictment and the sentence (even typographical errors). And supervisor Themis came to the conclusion that this did not cancel out the criminal conspiracy and did not affect professional qualifications. Here it is difficult to disagree, although based on such coincidences one can question the independence of the court, the absence of accusatory bias, etc. What if the investigation used AI in the process of drawing up the indictment, which is quite possible in today's reality? The consequences of the court rewriting such material in its judgment can be the most dire. Meanwhile, the courts themselves are now increasingly resorting to the help of AI when making (quite official) decisions. Up to now, these are just administrative cases considered according to the model. But what if this practice is transferred to criminal cases? And suddenly, thanks to AI, the judge of the Moscow district court wrote about “… the high level of anxiety of people who do not trust the future, are unemployed, and therefore are ready to commit selfish actions in order to avoid deprivation and poverty”? It sounds funny now, but in the future it will be very scary.
