China have deployed thousands of robots tasked with issuing Chinese citizens arrest warrants.
The three feet tall ‘legal robots’ are able to advise people on criminal legal issues, and can generate arrest warrants, according to prosecutors in the eastern province of Jiangsu.
Telegraph.co.uk reports: Almost 15,000 legal cases have been reviewed by the robots since they were deployed last September, officials said at a press conference this week.
BYPASS THE CENSORS
Sign up to get unfiltered news delivered straight to your inbox.
You can unsubscribe any time. By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use
They have detected issues and corrected mistakes in more than half the cases, and 541 convictions were commuted.
The robots have helped to handle cases at seven city governments and more than 30 lower level authorities in Jiangsu. Many of the cases were traffic violations.
The robots move around on wheels and have a human-like torso, but no arms. They have a digital screen as a face which displays eyes and a mouth, and also information on cases.
Jiangsu is rapidly emerging as one of the country’s most modern provinces, after scores of manufacturers specialising in high-tech components set up locally.
One factory in the electronics hub of Kunshan, a city in Jiangsu, said last year it would cut 60,000 staff from its workforce and replace them with robots.
Officials piloting the legal robots have moved to allay fears that an incorrect analysis could result in an unfair appraisal for a suspect, saying that the machines do not make “subjective judgements”.
However, there appears to be little scope for flexibility in China’s Communist Party-controlled courts, where a near perfect conviction rate results in more than 99 percent of defendants being found guilty.
