Estonia has introduced the first-ever artificial intelligence-powered judge. This will help in handling the backlog of small claims court disputes.

The country is looking to introduce artificial intelligence into its legal system. Estonian Ministry of Justice officials hope the country’s top data expert, Ott Velsberg, can help with the design.

The robot judge will analyse legal documents and other relevant information to make a verdict on minor court cases. It will settle small court claims of up to £6,000 to free up professionals to work on bigger and more important cases. A human judge will, however, revise the decisions made by the judge.

This technology is pretty much still in its early stage. No specific date has yet been announced for its roll-out. Although, the AI project that it is a part of will announce its results in May.

Using Algorithm to deal with legal issues is not a new occurrence in megacities. A UK-based chatbot has helped London and New York serve over 100,000 parking tickets. The small Northern European country has made significant advancements in digitising and modernising its government functions. It already has an electronic national ID card system, e-voting and a digital tax filing system.

The country has less than 1.4 million residents. Regardless, it is famous for launching its e-residency program to give everyone access to government services.

Artificial Intelligence is being used in Estonia for a few other government functions already. They have used it to scan satellite images with an algorithm to decide if subsidised farming operations are following government-mandated rules. Estonia is also using the technology to scan the resumes of sacked workers to help them find jobs.

But, in this case, can artificial intelligence give a fair judgment?