On July 10, 2019, Min Chul Park, an attorney in Kim & Chang’s Technology, Media and Telecommunications Practice, gave a presentation titled “Revival of King Solomon – ‘Robot Judge’” at the Innovate Korea Seminar.

Mr. Park noted that while AI technology is undergoing rapid development and expanding its scope of application not just in everyday life but also in the legal services sector, it is still inadequate to play fair and reliable roles that many expect.  Referring to a Cornell study which found that the appearance of a defendant could affect the criminal sentencing of the defendant, Mr. Park pointed out that the arbitrary and biased nature of human cognition may also affect the AI technology.  While he alluded to the possibility of a robot judge by referring to notable cases such as the AI legal assistance solutions “ROSS” and “Lex Machina,” he noted that they are still insufficient to replace the various human reasoning processes.  Nonetheless, Mr. Park maintained that “to overcome the limitations of fairness and reliability of human cognition, continuous development of AI technology is crucial,” and anticipated that “because the issue of bias stems from the lack of diverse experiences, the issue could be overcome by incorporating diversity into AI technology by data designing, analyzing and learning based on diversity.”  Reasoning that “ultimately, participation from all of us will be the driving force for a robot judge to render a fair and righteous judgment,” Mr. Park hoped that “a day will come when a robot judge – having overcome the cognitive bias through diverse human participation – can overcome human limitations and render a ‘Solomon’s Judgment.’”

The seminar was hosted by The Herald Business, a leading business newspaper in Korea, under the theme of “Beyond Boundaries” which diagnosed and discussed our rapidly changing life from various perspectives across the areas of space, life sciences, art and law.