NEW TECHNOLOGIES FOR THE SOCIETY: Interview with Prof. Rafał Łukasiewicz, Ph.D. and with Prof. Rommell Ismael Sandoval Rosales, Ph.D.

by Thiago Felipe S. Avanci, Ph.D.


Last November 2020, CEST – Society and Technologies Study Center held an International Seminars: New Technologies, Law and Society. Some worries concerning Artificial Intelligence (AI) and new technologies are valid. People, in general, do not understand it quite well and associate it with sci-fi.

We have invited Prof. Rafał Łukasiewicz, Ph.D., and Prof. Rommell Ismael Sandoval Rosales, Ph.D., to answer some questions about their study topics, which they kindly did.

Professor Rafał Łukasiewicz

Professor Rafał Łukasiewicz researches on the human artificial reproduction and AI.

Q. How artificial insemination on humans can be related to AI and new technologies?

A. My research concerns two aspects of using facial recognition technology in third-party reproduction – matching donor and searching a donor by a donor-conceived child. The resemblance between the donor and non-genetic intended parent might be crucial. The facial recognition technology gives a chance to select a proper donor from thousands of donors with his or her physical features into account. Moreover, facial kinship verification could be the effective method of finding donor by the donor-conceived child, but probably it must be supplemented by other ways on searching donor, for example, DNA commercial testing.

Q. How ethical this can be?

A. Sometimes using artificial intelligence could be morally controversial. For example, clinics offer facial recognition technology as a method of searching for donor who resembles famous person, instead of a non-genetic parent. Facial kinship verification might be a way of finding a donor in cases when he or she was anonymous and did not give consent to access their identifiable data. Facial recognition technology should be accessible for recipients, but with some limitations.

Professor Rommell Ismael Sandoval Rosales

Professor Rommell Ismael Sandoval Rosales researches AI and judicial activities and procedures.

Q. How can new technologies and AI help the judiciary system?

A. To facilitate the procedure of the judicial cases and its actors. In practice, expensive computers are used as words readers to write “resolutions” or court decisions”. At El Salvador, “judicial systems have created […] Electronic Case management System or ECMS […] that allows: to file a lawsuit; to schedule hearings and procedural stages; to establish communications with all procedure actors; to record oral hearings; to electronically sign documents;[…] among others. AI can also be a tool for searching and indexing systems for judicial decisions. Considering the volume of decisions, there is in this court system research engines for their databases. The publicity of the decisions (protecting sensitive actors’ data) allows classifying jurisprudential lines to know precedents or how the judges resolve. This allows stability and legal security.

Q. AI use for legal decision-making would not be dangerous for a free decision will from the judge?

A. In judicial systems where human resources and even equipment are scarce, these electronic systems allow random internal distribution between courts, ordering it or by file date, or by the court or even by the complexity of cases. This pre-classification by those previous criteria helps to avoid corruption in the public offices, preventing lawyers from selecting a favorite court.

Q. And this could not make hinder access to obtain some justice?

A. The use of AI for small legal is irrelevant, such as certain consumer cases.  It could help speed up the solution. On complex matters, AI can be a violation of fair trial. People have the right to a judge to present their cases. Any mistake could generate risks for vulnerable people (for racial reasons, indigenous peoples or LGTBI).

Q. Considering all this, is it possible to affirm that lawyers and judges are on the edge of extinction?

A. Technology should facilitate better legal services and better judicial services.It should not represent a new barrier to access to effective judicial protection or access to the right to justice, to the truth and to judicial reparations for every citizen. The algorithm, as it presupposes certain conditions that automate actions, undoubtedly suppresses the human element of justice: the application of principles and values. A judge must personally evaluate verbal and non-verbal activities from the actors in a lawsuit. A fully AI judiciary activity, would violate basic judicial guarantees.

It is possible to be more at ease. Society does not have a fully self-aware AI: AI-complete, capable of asking questions and researching answers. Today’s available AI consists of an if-and-else programming hypothesis (GOFAI – Good Old-Fashioned Artificial Intelligence) and machine learning AI, which establish on trial-and-error to fulfill incoming data. In any case, at least from now, human been formulates the questions and the programming. For this reason, it is unlikely AI kills lawyers´ and judges´ jobs or freely intervenes in human reproduction… at least we hope so!