CJI Calls for AI Accountability Under Rule of Law

New Delhi: Artificial intelligence is no longer a speculative technology but an operational reality and poses one of the most significant tests for international law, Chief Justice of India Surya Kant has said.

Speaking at a public lecture on “Artificial Intelligence and International Law” at Birkbeck College, University of London, the CJI said choices made during this decade would shape the future relationship between technology, power, freedom and justice for generations.

Justice Kant said technology was neither inherently benevolent nor harmful, and its impact depended on the legal, political and ethical frameworks within which societies chose to deploy it.

“The responsibility of law is neither to resist technological progress nor to surrender unquestioningly before it. Its responsibility is to ensure that technological power remains accountable to constitutional values, democratic legitimacy and human dignity,” he said.

Unlike previous technological revolutions, AI does not merely enhance human capacity but increasingly participates in decision-making processes that were historically considered uniquely human, he said.

The CJI said AI was reshaping governance, commerce, warfare, communication, public administration and, increasingly, the exercise of judicial and sovereign power. Governments now use algorithmic systems to allocate welfare benefits, assess immigration applications, monitor borders, regulate financial systems and support policing functions, while militaries are developing autonomous capabilities.

Courts across jurisdictions are also beginning to confront issues involving AI-generated evidence, automated decision-making and digital due process, he said. Private corporations, he added, now possess technological capacities that rival, and in some cases exceed, the informational reach of sovereign states.

Justice Kant said the central challenge was to ensure that in an age of intelligent machines, humanity retained authorship of the principles by which it is governed.

“If international law can rise to that challenge, artificial intelligence may become not merely a technological revolution, but an opportunity to reaffirm the values that lie at the foundation of democratic civilisation itself,” he said.

He said AI, when deployed responsibly and under appropriate human supervision, could help reduce delays, improve efficiency, expand access to legal information and allow judges and court administrators to focus on the more nuanced and human aspects of adjudication.

AI should not be viewed only as a source of legal complexity, but also as a powerful instrument to advance the constitutional promise of timely, accessible and effective justice, he said.

The CJI, who is on a six-day visit to the United Kingdom, said courts across jurisdictions were increasingly using AI-driven tools for legal research, case management, translation, transcription of proceedings, document classification and identification of judicial precedents.

“Ultimately, the future of artificial intelligence will be shaped not only by innovation but by the legal and moral choices that humanity collectively chooses to make,” he said.

He said the challenge before the international community was not merely to regulate technological capability but to preserve legal responsibility in environments where decision-making was increasingly mediated through algorithmic systems.

If responsibility becomes too fragmented to identify, accountability itself risks becoming illusory, the CJI warned.