Evolutionary Interpretation
Law and Machine Learning
Keywords:
Legal evolution, precedent, artificial intelligence, machine learning, interpretabilityAbstract
We approach the issue of interpretability in artificial intelligence and law through the lens of evolutionary theory. Evolution is understood as a form of blind or mindless ‘direct fitting’, an iterative process through which a system and its environment are mutually constituted and aligned. The core case is natural selection as described in biology but it is not the only one. Legal reasoning can be understood as a step in the ‘direct fitting’ of law, through a cycle of variation, selection and retention, to its social context. Machine learning, insofar as it relies on error correction through backpropagation, is a version of the same process. It may therefore have value for understanding the long-run dynamics of legal and social change. This is distinct, however, from any use it may have in predicting case outcomes. Legal interpretation in the context of the individual or instant case depends upon the generative power of natural language to extrapolate from existing precedents to novel fact situations. This type of prospective or forward-looking reasoning is unlikely to be well captured by machine learning approaches.
Reply by Masha Medvedeva, University of Groningen.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Main text and response text copyright © 2022 Simon Deakin, Christopher MarkouReply text copyright © the replier
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.