The quest for justice

Justice delayed is justice denied, goes the popular saying. But the question is why is justice delayed? As the Chief Justice of India expresses concern that over the 1,000 cases that are pending for 50 years in courts across the country and over two lakh for 25 years, it certainly needs to be figured why. Statistics are rather mindboggling. There are over 90 lakh civil cases and 2.1 crore criminal cases that are waiting justice in India. Details, if sought may prove to be revealing, because as per the Chief Justice, the total pendency in criminal cases at the summoning stage is more than one crore. The responsibility for summoning lies solely with the executive. That there is “a growing trend of belligerent and reckless behaviour on the part of some individuals and groups” in the society, is the unfortunate side of this story. There is a need to think seriously about what is to be done. The public faith and confidence in the institution is still intact, as evident from the promptness with which people seek legal recourse when they are dissatisfied with the executive action. What is worrying is that executive intransigence and callousness coupled with delay in judicial redressal may someday leave people in a state of hopelessness. That certainly would be a severe blow to a democratic state. It is the balance of power between the executive, legislature and judiciary and an independent fourth state that keeps a democracy ticking. And with judiciary being the final arbiter, the populace has a belief that in the end truth does prevail. Lately, there have been disturbing portends as attempts to discredit institutions on which public faith rests are on the rise. How do we face this challenge? Some of the suggestions made by the Chief Justice himself would certainly help. But there is a need to do more. There are certain weaknesses in the legal system that must be addressed. It must be realised that the executive ego is a major reason for creating litigious people. If the executive decisions are reason driven rather than ego driven, things would be much smoother. To curb such tendencies on the part of the executive, the law of Torts needs to be strengthened. It is ironical that the executive fights the public with public fund, whereas the public is forced to pay from their hard earned money. If the executive is made to understand that in case their actions do not stand the scrutiny of law, they may be made liable for the costs that have been incurred on the part of the system and the victim, who is litigant. When the point of law gets adjudicated, there is hardly any need to drag the matter further. Maximum number of pendency in the civil matters are due to this tendency to drag and delay matters. From one court to another, from single bench to double bench to a larger bench and so on. Yes, it is a legal right to seek such redressals. Only, if the executive is found deliberately delaying the matter, the order as to costs in case of the litigant getting matter adjudicated in his or her favour must be given and liability must be fixed. Feeding personal ego at public cost is just not fair.

What machines can’t learn

AI or Artificial Intelligence is suddenly the global trend. It took almost six decades for AI to become a revolution but it seems it is here to stay. What will then be left of HI or Human Intelligence? A big question that needs to be pondered over. Let us also consider if AI will actually bring the “Robocalypse” as coined by someone too apprehensive of the growing trend of robotisation along with corporatisation and mathematicisation that is becoming an obsession world over. There are two distinct schools of thought on the subject. One school opines that AI will make HI redundant and will replace humans in a big way or rather completely in the long run. The other school, however, the conservative one, believes that the AI is being overhyped and humans will remain in charge. But between these over-enthusiasts and conservatives, there is a reasonable band of opinion which is closer to the truth. AI can only do certain things and not all. Yes the computational ability of AI is much more than the human mind. For that matter even a 500 rupee pocket calculator is much more sophisticated than human mind as far as calculations are concerned. But are human beings only for calculations? Coming to deep learning, it has a much wider band of functions and has the ability to recognise patterns and provide solutions. It is being argued that they can be much better than human beings in making decisions based on interpretation of those patterns. Similarly, they can be much better at taking decisions because they can store, manipulate, infer and disseminate astronomically large quantum of data which is an impossibility for humans. Now comes the crucial question. Do humans take decisions only on be basis of data? Human decisions are a combination of information, emotion and values or else it would have been impossible for the Pandavas to kill Bhishma in the battlefield of Kurukshetra. And for some who may be sceptical about the Mahabharata, there is this story from the Silicon Valley. It was at the Bay Area Leadership Conference at San Francisco on June 15 that this columnist had an opportunity to interact with John Thomson, the Chairman of Microsoft, which is on the forefront of the current AI revolution. In his deliberations John had talked about the qualities that made him recommend Satya Nadella as CEO of Microsoft. But those qualities were not technical or computational skills. They were empathy, sensitivity and the emotional ability. On asking whether those qualities could be engineered in AI, John very candidly replied in the negative. Human nature is beyond the scope of even the most advanced of the algorithms to replicate. In the Indian philosophical thought the supreme quality of humans is the blend of Intelligence Quotient, Emotional Quotient and Morality Quotient. The one word in which this quality can be summed up in Hindi is viveka. Human sensitivities are developed through a long chain of evolution that is a result of a complex interaction of the Biological, the Psychological and the Sociology factors. Interestingly, none of these can be inculcated into the machine through AI. Deep learning, contrary to the popular assumption then, is not all that deep.