Author(s): Ihab Amro
This article deals first-hand with some legal, technological, ethical, and practical challenges facing the use of a machine arbitrator as an application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in theory and in practice, considering that the use of a machine arbitrator, as part of a ‘robotic justice’, might be possible throughout the arbitral process. These challenges include: the reference in the arbitration agreement to a machine arbitrator, the use of a machine arbitrator in the appointment of arbitrators, making an award by a machine arbitrator, and the provision of reasons in a machine arbitral award. This article shall exclude consideration of court decisions made by machines, even though a machine may also be used in making such decisions. This article concludes with findings regarding both the legal and the practical challenges facing the use of a machine arbitrator, and recommendations for facing these challenges. This encompasses, inter alia, provisions that might be considered in the future for amendment, including national laws of arbitration, model laws of arbitration, international conventions on arbitration, and institutional arbitration rules, de lege ferenda as opposed to de lege lata.