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A computer ‘judge’ has been developed which can correctly predict verdicts of the European Court of Human Rights with 79 per cent accuracy. The Telegraph reports.

Computer scientists at University College London and the University of Sheffield developed an algorithm which can not only weigh up legal evidence, but also moral considerations. The new method is the first to predict the outcomes of court cases by automatically analyzing case text using a machine learning algorithm.

To develop the algorithm, the team allowed an artificially intelligent computer to scan the published judgements from 584 cases relating to torture and degrading treatment, fair trials and privacy. The computer learned that certain phrases, facts, or circumstances occurred more frequently when there was a violation of the human rights act. After analyzing hundreds of cases the computer was able to predict a verdict with 79 per cent accuracy.

“We don’t see AI replacing judges or lawyers, but we think they’d find it useful for rapidly identifying patterns in cases that lead to certain outcomes,” said Dr Nikolaos Aletras, who led the study at UCL Computer Science.