The Justice

In the spring of 2030, this anonymous letter appeared on the public forum of the South Korean government’s official website. In two weeks, six million Koreans upvoted the petition. In three months, the National Assembly passed a bill to adopt artificial intelligence for Korea’s justice system.

After this letter was posted, there were countless attempts to identify the author. However, even the government failed to track down the source of this letter.

Dear fellow citizens,

Fifteen years ago, when my father was sent to prison for stock manipulation, I thought my life would forever be in shambles. I was in high school, and the adults said he would be released when I graduated from college.

I put the release date on my countdown app and watched the number decrease by the second. I overheard adults saying he could be paroled for good behavior. For the first two years, I felt like my country was spying on me as if my bahavior was counted in to decide Dad’s parole. I lived with a default setting of sadness and regret.

Mom said the trial was heavily influenced by the media’s portrayal of my father. “Never listen to what other people talk about your father,” she said. Although I felt my mom’s frustration, I didn’t—and still don’t—think my father was innocent. Yes, he was following orders from the chaebols, but he still let hundreds of people lose their fortunes. He may say he did it for the family, but his excuse didn’t matter at the trial.

The year after my father’s imprisonment, the CEO of CZ Group, Joongyong Lee was brought to trial being accused of sexual assault, bribery, and stock manipulation. The news about the trial was the headline for many weeks. I remember turning on my computer to watch the judge sentencing Lee to a two-year probation. Lee clearly made far more people suffer than my father did, but the judge argued the chaebol’s imprisonment would deteriorate the economic situation of our country. I uttered “What?” at the screen until I had to swallow the fact this country was designed to serve the rich and powerful.

I was awakened. I read the pronouncement over and over again until I had no energy left to tremble with rage. My heart was dipped in helplessness. School taught me all citizens are equal before the law regardless of gender, religion, and social class. What happened to this promise? I was mesmerized by the truth. The bedrock of our country has long been compromised to protect the “royals” of this society.

I must ask: when will we begin to respect our constitution? I am sick of seeing the same old faces in the congress. We all know these politicians are quick to talk but slow to deliver results. There must be a better path forward. For us and future generations who will witness the same patterns of injustice unless we rise against the corruption. We deserve equality in practice, not merely on papers. There is no time to waste—the country needs a revolutionary solution.

My proposal: we must adopt an open-source AI model to bring transparency and justice to our corrupt legal system.

You may ask, “How can we trust the AI model?” “What if the defendant refused the robot’s judgement?” “What if the model had a critical bug?” These questions are crucial, and I am open to answer them one by one.

First, I can prove the model—named “The Justice”—is at least ten times more capable than any current human judge. I know most lawyers spent years in school to shove information into their brain, but they cannot be possibly up-to-date on all the legal knowledge and individual cases. Law is similar to arithmetics. Al models always outmatch humans in terms of speed, accuracy, and consistency.

The code only wants to learn and execute. The Justice does not care if you are a renown politician, chaebol, or K-pop singer. Humans cause discrimination and nepotism, not the AI models. More importantly, the algorithm is being developed and maintained by thousands of talented programmers around the world.

Before the public release, every code update, including mine, will have to be approved by over 60 percent of the programmars actively working on this project. No one is getting paid to write code or suggest ideas for this model. This is a mission based community of engineers who want to be part of a nationwide revolution. There’s no chance an individual or company could influence all these coders to manipulate the algorithm.

Furthermore, there will be an immutable protocol, a set of algorithmic rules, to govern the code repository. For example, after version 1.0 of the model is released, only one code update will be accepted per week. All citizens, after going through a rigorous ID verification, will be able to upvote or downvote up to three code changes per week. Hacking someone else’s ID or any attempt to meddle with the voting system will be dealt with the utmost seriousness. I propose any violation against the protocol to be punishable by at least ten years in prison.

Every programmer who submits a contribution will be asked to provide a 5-minute video explainer about her reason behind the code update. The video is for the public who may not be familiar with programming and law. If more than ten-thousand citizens report the video’s argument to be inadequate, the video will be immediately taken down, and the suggested code update will be revoked.

These “lawmakers” will be incentivized to work for public good not selfish gains. The user names of these programmers will always be credited on the bottom of the code repository. We cannot trust the bureaucratic system but can put faith in each other through the mathmatical protocol. My ideas could sound overwhelming, but human society has evolved with technological advancement for thousands of years. The adoption of AI is a natural progression in the course of history.

The code will substitute our constitution, and I understand the gravity of this statement. I assure you. When the new system becomes a norm, not only a handful of lawyers but also all citizens will understand the laws governing our lives. As the court system evolves, we will no longer be ruled by the high-class elites.

Traditionally, trials have caused enormous cost and drama. Hiring a lawyer, especially the one who has a connection to the judge, is extremely expensive (because everyone knows the judge will favor her friends). At the same time, the trial process is always anxiety-inducing and painfully slow. Machines have already built our cars, skyscrapers, computers, and even spaceships. We already have advanced technology to make the legal process a hundred times cheaper and faster.

The time has come to democratize our courts. Who would you trust? A human who gets afraid of being disliked by the public, chaebols, and friends. Or the open-source code that only cares about being fair and just for every citizen. I choose the latter.

For far too long, lawyers have held the reins of power in this country, shaping policies and decisions to suit their interests. Look at all the elected representatives and presidents, they passed a bar or went to a law school. They have controlled this country for so long, and I expect them to be the all out waging a war against the attempt to adopt the AI model. They will act like the change will be the end of this country. I invite them to test the model and provide concrete examples that demonstrate the superiority of the current system.

The model is programmed to utilize all legal knowledge in databases and consider all evidence and arguments from all sides of a court case. However, all citizens have rights to be skeptical about the model’s capability and reliability. I am not asking you to believe The Justice is flawless. I do not expect its adoption to happen overnight. It will take a long time—perhaps many years—for the model to be acknowledged by law practitioners, elected officials, and millions of citizens.

As I am finishing this letter, I am looking out my window and hearing a bunch of children playing together. I feel something special in my heart. It is time to step off the same treadwheel and start walking toward the road ahead.