[Text on screen]: Are robots about to replace judges?

A groundbreaking study has found a computer can correctly predict decisions of human rights judges in four out of five cases.

Researchers from England and the United States analysed over 500 human rights cases. They picked judgments where three different human rights had been violated:the right to not be tortured or treated inhumanely, the right to a fair trial and the right to privacy and family life.

A computer algorithm analysed the facts of each case and then tried to predict what judges would find. The computer get it right in 79% of cases.

Are computer judges soon going to be ruling on human rights cases? Not likely, But computers are becoming central to protecting human rights.

Data privacy is one of the key human rights issues of our time. A UK court just said the secret services are spying on too much of our private data.

Maybe people could use computers to identify human rights abuses without needing lawyers. Ow that would be something!

So computers are not about to replace human right judges…well not yet, anyway.