When Judges Meet Generative AI

 

A judge relying on AI that invents case law is the stuff of nightmares, but it already happened, and Quebec’s courts are responding. We walk through brand-new guidance aimed at keeping generative AI out of the core judicial function while still acknowledging that the tools are everywhere. The key idea is simple: judges can’t delegate judgment, legal reasoning, or responsibility to a system that only simulates reasoning and cannot be accountable.

From there, we get practical about risk. We talk about confidentiality and why it matters if a draft decision, private notes, or details from an ongoing case are pasted into a cloud AI tool. We also look at the bigger threat surface as AI gets baked into word processors, phones, tablets, and even wearables that can summarize what they hear. Court technology policy now has to think not just about “using AI” but about the quiet ways AI features can ingest sensitive information.

Then we shift to a British Columbia case that shows how the criminal law responds to modern harm: distributing intimate images without consent under Criminal Code section 162.1, including the fact that threats can be crimes too. We break down how the judge approaches sentencing, why a conditional sentence is rejected, how Gladue factors are weighed for an Indigenous offender, and what probation adds after custody. If you care about AI in courts, privacy, judicial ethics, or criminal sentencing in Canada, this one connects the dots.

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Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan is live on CFAX 1070 every Thursday at 12:30 p.m. It’s also available on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.