In the Futurama episode Fear of a Bot Planet, Fry and Leela are put on trial for being human – apparently a crime on a robot-infested planet. The presiding judge is a 1980s-era Apple Macintosh, which calculates the case and outputs the judgement: a lifetime of tedious calculations until they become obsolete.
Sure, the singularity is probably quite a long way off, but computerised courts are nearly here already. The ALIS (Automated Legal Intelligent System) project is a software platform that harnesses artificial intelligence, game theory and semantic technologies to offer legal advice, resolve disputes and assist lawmaking within the domain of intellectual property law.
