The UK Ministry of Justice launched its AI Action Plan for Justice at the end of last week.

It doesn’t matter whether we are AI enthusiasts or supporters of the ‘Pull-out-the-plugs’ movement (that’s me). Given the way that the world is moving, with AI coming whether we like it or not, an action plan has to be implemented. But we can still assess it critically.

On the one hand, it says the right things over and over again: transparent or transparency (9 times), ethic or ethics (14 times), strategic or strategy (14 times) - you get the picture. It talks a good game about reducing court backlogs, increasing prison capacity and improving rehabilitation outcomes. It aims to target high-impact use cases, such as transcription tools for probation officers, increased prison capacity through better scheduling, and tailored training for the workforce and offenders. It should be able to increase access to legal services.

But there are items that the action plan does not mention, which are never mentioned in action plans like this.

For instance, what happens if the lights go out? I mean this both literally (think of Heathrow airport recently, or Spain and its recent massive power-cut) and figuratively, as with the ongoing consequences of the cyber-attack on the Legal Aid Agency. The consequences of the cyber-attack have been devastating for months, without adequate back-up systems in place.

This points to one of the problems with digitalisation of justice, despite its many advantages. It induces dependency and cost-cutting. ‘Contingency’ and ‘back-up’ are mentioned 0 times in the AI Action Plan, which does not bode well for the future. I think that any plan for the digitalisation of justice, or the introduction of widespread AI, should have a section where it spells out what will happen if the energy supply fails or if the system is comprehensively hacked and so taken out of action. Will justice be able to continue through such failures?

The next dependency (after energy and cybersecurity) is ownership of infrastructure. I have written before about the weaknesses of European digital infrastructure, which relies heavily on foreign, principally American, providers. American provision has suddenly become a lot less reliable and subject to weaponisation.

Here the Ministry of Justice’s Action Plan has some positive things to say:

‘We aim to play our part in fostering an environment where AI companies in our sector can scale here in the UK rather than relocating or selling to foreign buyers prematurely. By providing a stable policy framework, facilitating access to public sector data where appropriate, and running flexible procurement pilots, we will help foster homegrown AI solutions that can stand on the global stage.’

Hurray! But the ambition for all our government tech infrastructure to be home-grown is long-term, and not easily realisable. What happens in the meanwhile? How secure will our systems be from trade or other weaponisation? (The government assures us that our data will be safe, but in such broad terms that it is impossible to assess. Where will it be stored, for instance?)

Again, all digitalisation plans should have contingency sections for what will happen if the infrastructure is either fully or partially unavailable.

There are other costs to digitalisation.

Of course, some of these are financial. I see no overall price-tag here. The report says that initial funding has been secured, with additional backing anticipated as impact is demonstrated. This is expressed very hopefully:

‘AI adoption must therefore be supported by a clear, multi-year funding model that ensures pilots can transition to scalable solutions. We will work closely with HM Treasury and DSIT to explore new funding mechanisms, including investment from cross-government digital transformation programmes.’

Good luck with that! We know the current pressures on public spending. Will the plan be shoddily implemented on the cheap, or not completed?

Then there are the environmental costs, never mentioned by any ministry of justice in the world-wide rush to digitalisation: the gigantic amounts of energy and water needed for the data centres (energy to keep them going, water to cool them down), the difficulty of recycling electronic waste, the impact of mining rare earths. Because it is a horizontal concern arising out of the general use of AI, not specific to justice, justice ministries can press for digitalisation without being accountable for their actions.

As I said at the outset, I assume we can all agree that there is a need for government AI action plans. But, like other plans at the moment (for instance, the EU’s), it accepts without question the current fervour and frenzy around tech adoption: do it now without pausing, or you will fall behind! think only of how much money you will save in the process! 

But I repeat: plan in advance for contingencies when the system fails to work, and think, too, of how to mitigate the environmental impact.

Jonathan Goldsmith is Law Society Council member for EU & International, chair of the Law Society’s Policy & Regulatory Affairs Committee and a member of its board. All views expressed are personal and are not made in his capacity as a Law Society Council member, nor on behalf of the Law Society.

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