Honors Theses and Capstones
Date of Award
Spring 2024
Project Type
Senior Honors Thesis
College or School
COLA
Department
Philosophy
Program or Major
Legal & Political Philosophy
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
First Advisor
Nicholas Smith
Abstract
In this paper, I explore some of the ways in which artificial intelligence might enhance the sentencing process through recidivism prediction technology. Notably, this technology can increase the accuracy of risk predictions and the speed with which sentencing decisions are reached. I then show, however, that the recidivism prediction technology is likely to turn into what data scientist Cathy O’Neil calls a Weapon of Math Destruction. The potential harmfulness of this technology is due not to the inherent nature of the technology, but the symbiotic relationship it will have with our already harmful criminal justice system. I argue that the objective of implementing this technology is increased cost-effectiveness. It is against this metric that we will evaluate the technology’s success. Thus, if the technology makes our criminal justice system far more cost-effective—even if it proves to greatly increase harms done to society by the criminal justice system—we would be unlikely to substantially change our system once we have implemented it. Because of this, I argue that we ought to remove AI from our courtrooms now.
Recommended Citation
Newcomb, Kieran Duffy, "Judging Our New Judges: Why We Must Remove Artificial Intelligence from Our Courtrooms Now" (2024). Honors Theses and Capstones. 854.
https://scholars.unh.edu/honors/854
Included in
Applied Ethics Commons, Applied Statistics Commons, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Commons, Criminal Law Commons, Data Science Commons, Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons, Judges Commons, Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons, Philosophy of Science Commons, Probability Commons, Science and Technology Law Commons