Supreme Court’s Chief Justice Focuses Year-End Report on AI

“As 2023 draws to a close with breathless predictions about the future of Artificial Intelligence, some may wonder whether judges are about to become obsolete," Roberts wrote in his annual report, which typically includes an essay regarding an issue involving the court system along with statistics on the federal judiciary’s workload.

In some years, Roberts has addressed controversies involving the courts, including security for judges, financial conflicts of interest and, on one occasion, a plea for raising judicial pay. As the court faces continuing scrutiny over its members’ own conduct, including Justice Clarence Thomas’s relationships with wealthy benefactors, the chief justice devoted his 2023 edition to an important but, by Washington standards, determinedly anodyne topic: the court system’s reluctant but inevitable adoption of mechanical, electronic and digital tools.

The courts, Roberts observed, can be stubbornly retrograde in their approach to technological advances. Quill pens still are set out on counsel tables at the Supreme Court, he wrote, and “if you would like to travel back in technological time—and get current case information by phone—you can call 1-866-222-8029," tapping in to the telephone system the court first set up in 1989.

In Sunday’s report, Roberts said the courts eventually accepted typewriters, photocopiers and personal computers, and likewise will need to come to terms with AI.

“Law professors report with both awe and angst that AI apparently can earn Bs on law school assignments and even pass the bar exam," he wrote. But while the technology “has great potential to dramatically increase access to key information for lawyers and non-lawyers alike," he cautioned, “it risks invading privacy interests and dehumanizing the law."

On the plus side, Roberts said, AI can help people without access to lawyers, such as by finding the right forms and answering basic legal questions. But AI also “made headlines this year for a shortcoming known as ‘hallucination,’ which caused the lawyers using the application to submit briefs with citations to non-existent cases. (Always a bad idea.)," Roberts wrote. “Some legal scholars have raised concerns about whether entering confidential information into an AI tool might compromise later attempts to invoke legal privileges."

In criminal cases, “the use of AI in assessing flight risk, recidivism, and other largely discretionary decisions that involve predictions has generated concerns about due process, reliability, and potential bias," Roberts wrote. “Nuance matters: Much can turn on a shaking hand, a quivering voice, a change of inflection, a bead of sweat, a moment’s hesitation, a fleeting break in eye contact."

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.), who heads a Senate subcommittee on privacy, technology and the law, praised Roberts for focusing on AI.

“I regard this report as a kind of invitation to begin a dialogue" between Congress and the judicial branch on AI use in the legal system, Blumenthal said, adding that the issue has been one of bipartisan concern in the Senate. In August, Blumenthal and the senior Republican on his subcommittee, Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, agreed on a framework for legislation on the technology.

While expressing support for Roberts’s concerns about overreliance on AI, Blumenthal said he was disappointed that the chief justice had nothing to say regarding the court’s problems, which polls show have driven down its public approval.

Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court, an advocacy group that pushes for court transparency, agreed. “A year-end report that fails to address or even mention the ethical lapses uncovered over the last 12 months is about as useful today as the typewriters the chief justice waxes poetic about," Roth said.

In a statistical appendix, Roberts reported that the federal courts’ appellate workload fell over the past year. The number of Supreme Court petitions fell 15% to 4,159, while the court issued 55 signed opinions, down from 58 a year before. In the federal courts of appeals, filings fell 4% to 39,987.

Federal district courts saw criminal cases decline 3% overall to 66,027, although immigration offenses, the largest component of the criminal docket, increased by 3% to 19,645. Civil cases increased 24% to 339,731.

Bankruptcy courts saw a 13% increase in new filings, to 433,658, still significantly below the five-year high of 776,674 recorded in fiscal year 2019.

Write to Jess Bravin at Jess.Bravin@wsj.com