China develops AI ‘prosecutor’ that can press charges ‘with 97% accuracy’  | Daily Mail

China has developed an artificial intelligence prosecutor that can charge people with crimes with more than 97 per cent accuracy, researchers claim.

The dystopian machine can identify ‘dissent’ against the state and suggest sentences for supposed criminals, removing people from the prosecution process.

There are already fears the system could be weaponised by the Chinese Communist Party with human prosecutors concerned about who would take responsibility for the AI’s decisions. 

The AI would allow human prosecutors to ease their workload and allow them to only focus on the more complex cases, the project’s lead scientist Professor Shi Yong said.

The system can run on a standard desktop computer and would press charges based on 1,000 ‘traits’ from the human-generated case description text, the South China Morning Post reported.

It was ‘trained’ using 17,000 real life cases from 2015 to 2020 and is able to identify and press charges for the eight most common crimes in Shanghai.

These 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.

China develops AI ‘prosecutor’ that can press charges ‘with 97% accuracy’  | Daily Mail Online

China develops AI ‘prosecutor’ that can press charges ‘with 97% accuracy’  | Daily Mail Online